The Devil's ID
by Artful Dabbler
Summary: Sherlock's on the verge of a mental collapse. John wants to take him out of the eye of the storm for a while. Little does he know that the Devil awaits them in a sleepy seaside village - An update of 'The Devil's Foot' which contains one of the most notorious Holmes/Watson moments in the ACD canon. Complete!
1. Genesis

The faint, metallic ticking of their antique coaching clock, a trophy from a recent case, was only just audible over the street noises as the hour approached midnight. 221B Baker Street had never been a serene place, and with the lights and television off and the computers shut down for the night, the flat felt out of character.

The corners of the room were in absolute darkness, and the orange sodium glow from the streetlights outside the half-drawn curtains picked out, in dull monochrome, the bolder details of a bachelor flat in need of a tidy and considerably more shelf space. Half a glass of red wine sat untouched before the front left foot of Holmes' armchair, his violin rested face down upon its seat, and the violin bow sat at a precarious angle across the cluttered mantle, vibrating faintly with each tick of the clock. It was utterly peaceful. The room sighed, shut its eyes, and waited for dawn.

The sound of an explosion made the flat instantly familiar again. John Watson has been asleep for half an hour, and was still on the far side of consciousness when he leapt bodily to his feet, an instinctive response drilled into him during his army days, when casualties would flood the field hospital in Kandahar at every hour of the night. He dragged his bathrobe from where he'd flung it and had barely closed it around his waist when his heels hit the floorboards of the hall outside Holmes' room.

"Sherlock? What the hell was that? Sher—!"

Holmes flung his bedroom door wide, emitting himself, a healthy belch of oily smoke and assorted detritus of papers, feathers, and much else of a less identifiable nature.

"Sherlock, what are you doing?" John barked, snatching the fire alarm from the wall before it could go off and wake the whole building. "Are you alright?"

Holmes stripped the rubber gloves from his hands and shoved them into the pocket of his favourite grey dressing gown; he dragged his fingers through his matted curls.

"An experiment, John."

"An experiment?"

"An experiment on the formulation of ingestible explosives."

"Ingestible explosives? At this time of night?"

"Yes. Did I wake you?" John's only response was to give him a look of absolute incredulity. "I thought I'd work after you went to bed, rather than disturb your evening."

"I see. How thoughtful of you."

"Besides, you know my need for quiet when I'm thinking."

"That's fine, but… what for, Sherlock? I didn't know you had a case about—"

"I don't. It's nothing."

"Nothing—?"

"I was revisiting an old idea, nothing more."

John watched his friend and colleague carefully, his concern growing. At no point in the preceding conversation had Holmes stopped moving. He pulled the silk belt of his robe through his fingers, he drummed his toes against the wainscot; his eyes shifted rapidly, never resting on anything longer than a tenth of a second. John moved past his friend to look in on the heart of the explosion, drawing lightly on the air to detect any toxic fume that could have gone to Sherlock's head.

"Well, old idea or not, I'm sorry it went wrong. Are you hurt?"

"Wrong? John, it was brilliant. I'm fine. In fact, I couldn't be more pleased with myself."

"Uh huh. Mrs Hudson will wish she could say the same. Sherlock, look at the state of your ceiling."

Sherlock stopped his buzzing long enough to stare incredulously at John.

"My ceiling? What about my ceiling?" He joined John in peering back into the bedroom. He scoffed. "All the same, what're ceilings when my gift to forensic science is so great?"

"What's forensic science when we're thrown out of our flat?"

Holmes turned his eyes back to John; he studied the faint pillow creases that traced across his temple and cheekbone. "Everything, John. Everything."

"Right. Of course."

Sherlock moved past him, swept the wine glass from the foot of his chair in the sitting room without a pause and downed the dregs, dropping the empty glass onto the mantle. For the first time, John noticed a few of the fragments of handwritten paper that had come drifting through into the hallway from the bedroom. He stooped to gather them. "Wai— Sherlock. Are these… are these—?"

"Ah. An old copy of your 'Spotted Band' story."

"_Speckled!_"

"I suppose it is. Well, the pages which weren't incinerated entirely are a bit — a bit splattered. I used them to insulate the flask of explosive," he explained, miming the action with shaking hands. John had come to stand perfectly still in the doorway of the kitchen.

"You realise I haven't got another copy of this?"

"It was convenient."

"Oh, it was convenient. Well, in that case—"

"I knew you'd understand. And the damage isn't all that bad, surely."

"Hard to say. The smoke hasn't cleared enough yet to tell. But, I suppose the earliest we can be evicted is still a few hours away."

Holmes fidgeted still, unheeding of the warning tone that had crept into Watson's voice. The doctor had his arms crossed, his bare feet parallel with the floorboards, his back erect.

"Have you any more experiments to do tonight, or may I go back to bed?"

Holmes slowed, but wouldn't meet John's eyes. He had, however, evidently been listening.

"You're angry."

"Well, really, Sherlock, for godsake!"

"Oh, what?"

"What's wrong with you tonight? Can't you just go to bed like a normal… get eight hours every now and then? It would do us _both_ a hell of a lot of good."

"I cannot apologise! You, you ordinary types may be content to sleep for hours on end; I _have_ to be occupied! These past days have been too dull to live through. I need work!"

John broke his stance and, unable to look his friend in the face, retrieved the wineglass from the mantel, strode to the kitchen and briefly contemplated throwing it into the sink to make a point, but stopped himself at the last second.

"You have work. You do work," he insisted, punctuating himself with the heavy ding of glass on stainless steel. Holmes wasn't listening.

"When there is a case, I'm satisfied. I'm easy in my mind. When there's no case, I must have other channels, other outlets.

"What, your nicotine patches? Or do I have to worry about you revisiting… old habits?"

"I'm clean. And thank you for your tact, _doctor_."

"So you read. You play your violin…"

"Or should I say _mummy?"_

"…you conduct your experiments at all hours of the day and—"

"No!" he interrupted. "John, my mind is–is like an engine up on blocks, tearing itself to pieces because it has no work to absorb its terrible power."

"Terrible power-" John breathed.

"Of course! You have no idea how I suffer."

"Oh, how _you_ suffer?" John turned from the sink, shaking his head at the irony of Sherlock's words. "If work is what you need, you've had requests, Sherlock – a list as long as my arm, only you—"

"Missing…bloody…fiancés, petty theft, extortion. Dull, John! Dull! One cannot live on such-such—"

"What about the one Lestrade was keen on, just yesterday, the one about the missing—?"

"Oh, Lestrade! He would find such rudimentary problems difficult… Am I to be a nanny? Hm? Spend my days running after the children of Scotland Yard? _Off you go, boys and girls. Don't worry, Daddy's watching. Not too far, now!_"

Holmes threw himself into his armchair with a sickening crack. Springing to his feet, he snatched his violin up and discovered that the bridge had snapped in two under his weight. He threw the splintered pieces at the far wall. A momentary glance convinced him that the rest of the instrument was unharmed; this, he clutched to his chest, strings sagging limply, as he folded himself up into a great sulking knot in the depths of the upholstery. John hadn't moved from the kitchen doorway.

"Sherlock?"

"What."

"Have you considered that maybe too _little_ work isn't your problem?"

"I don't see what you mean."

"I _mean_ that perhaps your behav—the symptoms of overwork are similar enough to boredom that you've mistaken one for the other.

"Mistaken! Mistaken! I am never mistaken—" he growled.

"Remember that, despite your mockery, I do speak as your doctor as well as your friend. I find this agitation worrisome. It's been coming on for days now."

Holmes scoffed, absorbed by the texture of his slack violin strings. The sound he was stirring from them turned John's fingernails on edge.

"I'm quite serious, Sherlock. It isn't easy for me to say but, looking at you tonight and in recent days generally, I think you might be headed for some sort of breakdown."

"Some sort of breakdown," Holmes repeated, mocking him.

"It wouldn't be the first time."

"Nor the last. You have my thanks, _doctor_, for your concern, but I really must insist: when it comes to the preservation of the body your knowledge has no equal. Where the functioning of the mind is concerned, well, the advantage lies closer with me."

Watson's tone became deadly. "Then what am I to do with you?"

"Leave me alone, or be a dear and find some worthy diversion until a proper problem finds its way into my hands."

It had taken Watson years of clinical practice before he was finally able to find the personal distance that other, more experienced physicians seemed able to turn on with enviable ease. In the interest of self-preservation, John flipped the mental switch, unpractised as it was, that would allow him to move past anger and frustration, to try to find a solution to his own present problem.

But what solution (other than a seven percent solution) can there be? R&R! Your feedback is always appreciated. Thank you!


	2. Epistles

Eighty-seven.

He'd insisted he wouldn't keep count.

Eighty-eight.

He'd made a promise to himself.

Eighty-nine.

It was bad for his own mental health.

Ninety.

It smacked of a level of concern…

Ninety-one.

…even he found unsettling.

Ninety-two.

A normal friend, a normal flatmate…

Ninety-three.

…would have taken a walk, or at least…

Ninety-four.

…plugged himself in and ignored the noise.

Ninety five.

But he couldn't. It was as though…

Ninety-six.

…he had to be there beside him…

Ninety-seven.

…as this crisis played out. As though…

Ninety-eight.

…walking away from this now…

Ninety-nine.

…would see more than his nerves unravel.

"One hundred." John hadn't meant to speak the number aloud, but it was out before he could stop himself. Holmes caught the red ball as it ricocheted off the wall with its customary _ker-thunk_, for the hundredth time, from where he was reclining on the settee.

"Really? I hadn't been counting."

John kept his eyes focused on the computer screen in front of him. When Dr Stevenson had phoned in ill at the Camden Town clinic, Dr Watson had been only too happy to work an extra shift that afternoon. It had given him an extra few hours of blessed distraction – a mental holiday – from the situation at home. John knew he was entering dangerous territory when he preferred the clinic to home.

Sherlock, he knew, had seen the envelope John had balanced prominently on the mantelpiece – a letter that had been slipped in between the bills and the takeaway menus of the morning post. Returning from work, John could tell that Sherlock hadn't gone near it all day. As much as he hated to, John even tried making reference to the oddity over dinner – anything to break the campaign of silence Holmes had entered into the previous night, after their 'little domestic', as Mrs H insisted on calling them, to John's great chagrin. That it was a letter was strange in itself. No one wrote letters these days. He wished it hadn't arrived at all; John wanted Sherlock's attention away from work for a time, but getting him to seriously focus on anything else was getting more difficult with each passing day. And now… the bloody rubber ball. Perhaps the letter was worth another try.

"I'd have thought that letter would've been something of interest for you."

_Ker-thunk._

"What letter?"

John knew he'd seen it, damn the man, he had to. "That one, on the mantle."

Holmes caught the ball again (one hundred fourteen) and held it beneath his chin. He turned his eyes, if not his head, to pick out the stark white rectangle.

"I did mention it earlier this evening."

"What were we doing when you mentioned it?"

"_I_ was eating dinner. You, um, you were sitting in your usual place, _not_ eating. Again. You had that book – something about Mozart - open on your lap."

"Ah. That explains it."

"Say again?"

"I didn't hear you speak. I was listening to the music.

"To the music, of course. I see. I still thought you might have heard me."

"Why, did I reply?

"You did…wave your hands," Watson replied, mimicking Sherlock's actions.

"Conducting, John. Pass it to me, will you?"

John felt only a minor sense of relief. He had Sherlock talking again. The rubber ball came to rest in the depression at the centre of Sherlock's chest and, best of all, his hands – for the moment – were steady. John grabbed the letter and made to tear it open.

"John!" Sherlock snapped, suddenly alert and sitting erect, the red ball bouncing away from him across the floor. "Have you learned nothing? I'm disappointed in you. Hand me the envelope sealed and unmolested."

He did so, a bit shaken. Sherlock received the letter into his left hand, shifted it to his right, and tapped it against the side of his face.

"I wonder what can have moved a man of the cloth to such a degree as this?"

"Now, that is ridiculous. Sherlock, how can you possibly… how can you _possibly_ tell that the letter comes from a priest? You haven't opened it. You barely looked at it!"

"I hardly need to. It's a letter, John. A _letter_. A bit traditional, wouldn't you say?"

"So it could be any—"

"Besides, here's a man whose handwriting betrays both education and clerical skill; a man whose own preference is for neatness and clarity, and who's adopted that peculiar style of writing seen in the marginalia of sacred texts, examples of which may be found in any university library - easily recognisable. Yet the letter has been postmarked in the parish of Tredannick - Cornwall – an oddly rural locality for a man both of letters and religious inclination, and so we must assume he's the local vicar. So far the clues are obvious."

"Yes, obvious," Watson breathed, feeling his toes curl into the pile of the carpet.

"But see, John! Here he's mistakenly begun to write a 'c' rather than the 'k' in Baker Street. Normally, such a man's preference would be to scrap the misprinted envelope and use another, but here, with evident agitation, he's scratched out his mistake and carried on. Also he's been careless with the blotting paper, for of course he uses a fine fountain pen – a gift, most likely, from his seminary college – but such carelessness is yet another sign of either heightened urgency or disturbance. Do you see?"

"Well, hm, now that you point it out—"

"Excellent, John. Perhaps you have picked up a few basic tricks of observation. Shall we open the letter and find out the cause of the vicar's hurry?"

"Of-Of course." John heard himself agreeing, his mind trying to catch up. Sherlock resumed lying on the settee and held the letter at arm's length. With his other hand, he retrieved a blue rubber ball from his dressing gown pocket.

"You do the honour. I'll listen."

"You're joking."

"Nope."

"Fine, just don't start—"

_Ker-thunk_. One hundred, sixteen.

He did not accept this behaviour, but damn if he could do anything about it. "Dear Mister Sherlock Holmes," he began, enunciating over the continued _ker_-_thunk_ of the rubber ball. "_You do not know me, while you have achieved worldwide fame._ Well, at least he knows the way to your heart, Sherlock. _It is my sincerest hope that you will forgive the impudence of my writing to you, and that you will not turn away this unsolicited call for help_. Polite and old-fashioned. I say."

"He's a vicar. _Pray_ continue," Holmes urged, without missing a beat. At least John had blessedly lost count.

_"__A series of strange events in my parish has left me most unsettled and fearing further trouble. Several residents of our village, these being the Tregennis family of Tregannick Wartha House, and the respectable Doctor Leon Sterndale of Beauchamp Arriance, have told me that, for several nights, they've been subject to surveillance from beyond their windows, and although searches were made of the grounds of both houses, no trace of the perpetrator has yet been found, nor any reason for these midnight watches._ A peeping tom? Surely the local police would be more useful to him."

"The police are rarely useful, except for comedic value. Be a good man and don't interrupt the vicar."

"Sorry, Sherlock. Where was I? _…these midnight watches._ Right. _These events were paired, for everyone involved, with a most powerful feeling of foreboding and disquiet. Were this all, we might…" _John broke off in a fit of chuckling he couldn't keep down. "Sorry, Sherlock. There's nothing for us here. Forget it. It's rubbish."

"I'd like to decide for myself, thank you."

_Ker-thunk._

_"_If you insist." John commenced again, adding what he thought was an appropriate, melodramatic tone to his rendition. _"Were this all, we might have girded our loins and blamed our troubles on the tricks of moonlight, and wind in the cracks of our ancient stone walls, which, over the steady course of passing centuries, have given rise to the chilling tales for which our county is famous._ This is like something off late-night telly.

"John!" Sherlock threw the ball so that it just brushed past John's ear, and the good doctor, who forgot his earlier resentment in that surprising moment of playfulness, blushed as he couldn't help himself, and hurried on.

"Sorry. _Except that, Mister Holmes, last evening Doctor Sterndale was woken by the sound of his kitchen window being broken. He found a great disturbance in his house, but no sign of the intruder and nothing stolen, as far as he can tell. Mister Holmes, these events rattle us, and our local police have offered nothing in the way of comfort or explanation._ _I can't help but feel we're only on the edge of greater trouble to come, Mister Holmes, and I humbly ask that you condescend to look into the matter, and help us find out what this mysterious force or figure is, who so disturbs us. Yours faithfully, Reverend William Roundhay of Tredannick Wollas, West Cornwall._ There."

"Is that all?"

"You were hoping for more?"

"I'm always hoping for more, John."

"Poor man – all those cracks in his _stone walls_ must be getting to him," John said, twirling a finger next to his temple for added emphasis. Sherlock smiled. John smiled back.

"Your last blog post was more thrilling."

"Yes, yes it was."

"It was about fair trade bananas.

"Yes…it was."

"Perhaps we should let that remain our lowest goalpost."

John felt relief. He made the noises of condolence as he moved to put the curious letter in the bin, his eyes closed at the thought of having to live with Holmes through a further untold number of restless, excruciating days. If only John could bring him relief. If only…

A sudden hand on his arm stopped him in his tracks. John would never adjust to the speed with which Holmes could move when he wanted to.

"Wait. There's something peculiar here."

"Peculiar?"

"Yes, most peculiar."

"I can't see anything in this."

"Something's missing," Holmes murmured, slipping the letter from John's hand.

"It's long-winded enough! I was losing the will to li—"

"Something important."

"The vicar doesn't seem the type to downplay his concerns."

Holmes released his grasp of the doctor's arm to pace the room, reading, and swept the red ball from the floor.

"But, do you see, the agitation of this man? His manner? His fear?"

"Well, a bit of that, yes."

"All that romantic nonsense thrown in about moonlight and shadows…"

"Figures of speech?"

"A blind."

"I don't know, Sherlock."

"Yes, absolutely. Something tells me there's more to this than the vicar's willing to share. Mr Roundhay, for all his B-movie phraseology, has kept silent about something crucial - the very thing that frightens him most - even while he hopes to interest me in the case. But why? Why?

"Look, Sherlock, I'm sure I don't know. But do you remember what I told you last night?"

Holmes paused, brows knitted, as though putting great effort into recalling the conversation that John had been replaying and reworking continuously since. It infuriated him.

"You liked my tomato sauce?"

"I suggested – No! You ass – I suggested that it would do us – _you_ – some good if you took some proper time off, as in a holiday. I was suggesting you take a holiday."

"John, that's brilliant! What an idea."

"You said your father was out of the country. You could go home for a bit, spend—"

"Cornwall is lovely this time of year, isn't it?"

John could see his suggestion begin to plummet to earth like a dead helicopter. "Yes, but what I was actually trying to suggest was that—"

"A change of air and scenery would do us a world of good, yes?"

"Yes, but that isn't quite what I had in mind."

"Sun?"

"Yes, but—"

"Sand?"

"Yes, but I think—"

"A decent puzzle to refresh the mind for its own good."

_Boom._

"Y-_No_, Sherlock. I was thinking, rather, that you'd do well to get away, as in properly away, from _work_, not just London."

"Nonsense! We can go two for one.

"We?"

"Why do separately what you can do together?"

"Are we talking about mental and physical again?"

Holmes lifted his phone from his pocket. "I'm looking up the next train."

"It's quiet, Sherlock, you need quiet and proper rest."

"Oh, John!" Sherlock interjected, almost manic. "How can you insist on rest, as you call it, when there are so many interesting things happening out there?"

"Out where?"

"No, there's something clever, something enticing about this case, regardless of how it looks at first."

"Maybe you simply want there to be."

Sherlock flung the window curtains wide, twirling back to take John by both shoulders. "_Simply_? John, real life is infinitely stranger than anything invented by the mind of man."

"Your phone's digging into my clavicle."

"If we flew out this window, hand in hand, hovered over this great city, removed the roofs, and peeped in at the strange things going on, it would make all fiction stale and cheap."

The room felt, to John, far too warm. "Perhaps in London, but in _Cornwall_, Sherlock?"

But then Sherlock was away again, pressing his cheek to the cold, black glass that fronted onto Baker street. "Yes, don't you see? Yes! The countryside, John. The countryside! Think of its isolation, and the freedom with which crime may be committed there. In all my professional life the countryside has stood as the darkest and most horrible place of violent and twisted corruption. It's my belief, John, that the lowest and most hateful alleys in London present no worse a record of sin than the smiling and beautiful countryside. Were I to turn criminal, and I think about it daily, it's in the countryside that I'd feel most comfortable."

"You know, Sherlock? You horrify me sometimes."

The sound of Sherlock's gleeful laugh was almost too much for John to bear. It thrilled him. Everything about that moment and the plans unfolding from it thrilled him. John had challenged Sherlock about his past addictions. He reddened to think about it; his own were far less under control.

Dabbler adores feedback!


	3. Exodus

Author's Note: Thank you for your feedback! It's very encouraging.

Do visit Cornwall, if you can. It's a beautiful place!

* * *

Poldhu cottage clung, as it had done for 250 years, to the side of a sloping flint cliff. Behind the house, the cliff had been carved away into a series of little steps and terraces up to a height of twenty feet above the slate roof tiles. Though softened by plantings of alpine flowers, it was an intimidating replacement for a garden. In front of the cottage, the lane (should such a steep and narrow passage be worthy of the term) swept down towards the harbour, slaloming as it went, past whitewashed fishermen's dwellings.

The weather was wet, and the lane had taken on the role of a storm drain. John just managed to stand upon the narrow black step at the cottage door, saving his shoes from further abuse from the runoff rushing past. The elevation of the cottage allowed for a sweeping view over the gables and chimneys of the village, and to the little bay with its tethered fishing boats and to the grim sea walls beyond that gave protection from storms that famously pounded the Cornish coast every autumn and winter. It was really rather desolate, very pretty, and terribly quiet.

No cars would fit down the lanes, and so the hills on all sides of the ancient village were topped with car parks, new houses, and a mini Co-op food shop John knew he'd be visiting before long. The seclusion of the place was an illusion he could maintain, provided he kept his gaze down towards the sea.

Fifteen minutes ago, as they'd walked up the lane to the cottage door, John couldn't help but notice that every single dwelling had a 'holiday let' sign posted in the front window. He'd pointed this out to Reverend Roundhay, who had greeted them off the train with a level of enthusiasm John could scarcely believe possible. William, as he'd insisted they call him, happily explained that the village was all but barren of year-round residents, who preferred to let their old family homes to holiday makers and live with all the mod-cons in the new houses on level ground nearer the main road.

"It's – ahem – practically a ghost town, bless us!" he'd said, guiding them through a labyrinth of alleyways to the cottage. "Even the parish priest has succumbed to the trend! Poldhu Cottage belongs to me, but you're in luck, Mr Holmes! I've no guests this week and you're more than welcome to call it home while you're… while… now where? Erm… shit – beg pardon! – I, um, I forgot the key back…back up at the house."

Shedding apologies, William had turned to run back. When Sherlock offered to go with him, the better to know the way, the vicar had practically wet himself.

John was left balancing their luggage between his legs and enjoying the fresh sea air in a moment of solitude. He breathed deeply, choosing to ignore for the present how small, how very small, the cottage he and Sherlock would be sharing appeared to be from the outside.

He heard the vicar's effusions approaching, and John pressedhis hand over the paperback he had concealed inside his inner coat pocket. It was a gift – nothing much – just a collection of mystery stories they'd had on special at Paddington Station. While Sherlock had been getting them coffee for the train, John had picked it up. He knew how much Sherlock enjoyed reading aloud, tearing the plotlines to pieces as he did. He wondered: should he give the book to Sherlock straight away, or save it for an emergency?

The odd couple turned the last corner noisily, Holmes walking erectly with his hands clasped in the small of his back, his hair slick and his cheeks pink from the effort of the climb, the reverend puffing and gesticulating unreservedly.

"I hope, that is, I'm sure you will be most comfortable here, Mr Ho—Sherlock! Sorry, I did it again! It's just that you're always referred to as Mr Holmes in the papers.

Holmes chose to ignore what had clearly been one of many references to his fame. "You're very generous, William. John and I could easily have stayed at the inn and saved you the trouble."

"No trouble! Oh, no trouble! What would that look like, as you've been so kind as to come down in person, Mr Holmes. I only wish I'd known you were, erm — no matter! No matter. _Poldhu cottage is the perfect weekend escape destination!_ That's what it says on my brochure."

The vicar shoved through the tiny front door with a great rattling of keys and ushered them through into the main room.

"Oh, yes. This is lovely!" John enthused, noting that he could stand perfectly erect, while Holmes needed to stoop a few inches under the sagging black beams that crossed the ceiling. Like a graceful Bonzai tree, The vicar's frame had moulded, over five decades of living in Cornish cottages, to fit perfectly under even the lowest doorway and brace.

"It's a quiet little corner of the village," he said with steepled fingers. "Very private. And, hopefully, it'll be a good place for working in."

"It's a holiday we're really after, William. A bit of relaxation."

"And isn't that just what William has given us?" Sherlock said. "This case was just the sort of thing I was looking for."

John stopped listening as Sherlock took up his obsession once more. They'd been in Tredannick, what? Twenty minutes? He twisted inwardly in his frustrated efforts to get Sherlock's mind away from work.

"This window has a fine view, Sherlock. Look," he tried, but the vicar had Holmes' attention.

"I must say that I thought the chances of your actually coming down were slight, Mr Holmes, er, Sherlock! Being, as you are, so in demand in town by more important people."

"Nonsense, William!"

"Eh…excuse me?"

"You can hear the sea, even from up here," John continued, knowing he spoke only to himself.

"It is, as ever, the quality of the puzzle that engages me, and not the _importance_, as you call it, of the client."

"I see. Oh, I see! Thank you, I'm sure!

"Can you recommend any good walks along the coast? Historic sites, maybe?" John continued, looking askew at the vicar's uneven sideburns.

"I'm sorry?"

"Decent pubs? That one in the little cove we passed in the car looked promising."

William Roundhay looked at Watson as if seeing him for the first time, or as if he was at last willing to acknowledge that Holmes had brought someone with him.

"Oh, indeed, Mister Watson. Many fine walks. Good pubs! There," he said, lifting a brochure from the rustic coffee table. "All the relevant details. Of course, excuse me! You will want to occupy yourself while Sherlock is at work."

Holmes indulged in the resonant laugh he reserved only for those rare moments when humour caught him off guard. The vicar stared at him with childlike dismay.

"Sherlock is not at work! That's the point! This is a holiday."

A heavy pounding on the cottage door brought the awkward moment to a close. It made everyone jump, and Sherlock knocked his head on a ceiling beam. Before anyone could shift themselves, the door swung open and in walked a man of giant proportions who bodily filled the vestibule and cut off the light from the leaded glass pane in the door.

* * *

Thanks for R&R!


	4. Ecclesiastes

Shabbily dressed in faded jeans and a bleach-spotted jumper, and dark-shouldered with the rain, the giant of a man thumped into the room without waiting for either invitation or introduction. Watson stepped between Holmes and the stranger.

"Bill? You free?" the man called, rubbing a meaty hand over his thick black beard. "Been looking everywhere for you…favour to ask."

The man stopped and processed, belatedly, that the vicar wasn't alone. His manner changed in an instant, though he remained no less intimidating a figure.

"Ah. Guests, William? Sorry for barging in. I thought you didn't have anyone staying this week."

"I hadn't until yesterday! Doctor Leon Sterndale, may I please introduce Mr Sherlock Holmes and his frien…ah…hm…companion, Mr Watson. They've just arrived from London."  
"_Doctor_, actually," John piped up, moving forward and offering his hand to Sterndale. "A colleague, I see."

"No."

The word was uttered by Leon Sterndale and Sherlock simultaneously, which put a tang of aggression in the air.

"Anthropology, in fact," Sterndale offered, looking to Holmes rather than to Watson.

"I know," Holmes replied.

"Pleased to meet you. I've heard your name, Mr Holmes."

"Yes, and we've heard yours. William mentioned you in connection with the business which brought us here. It was your window, was it not, which was broken last week?"

"It was. Damn nuisance that it should happen now."

"Understandable. Domestic repairs, and so near to your departure. Are you to be long in Africa, Doctor Sterndale?"

"Here we go," Watson sighed with weary exasperation.

"What?" Sterndale barked. "Roundhay, you've told—"

"No, no indeed, I haven't!" the vicar replied with glee in his expression.

Sterndale laughed brusquely and extended his hand to Holmes. "The papers have it right, then, Mr Holmes. How do you know I'm going to Kenya?

"Oh, you would ask, wouldn't you?" Watson breathed to himself, and Sterndale glanced sharply across at him. Sherlock inhaled audibly.

"Don't be alarmed, Dr Sterndale. The signs present themselves quite clearly. That you're on the brink of leaving the country is simple enough to see. You are educated and evidently well off, however your clothing is evidently worn: these are the things you grub around in – not what you would casually wear in company had you any other choice. Your usual wardrobe, then, is unavailable; probably packed into your luggage, ready for departure. You have a list protruding from your coat pocket, well handled. That it's so near at hand suggests you've been consulting it regularly; in fact, you were putting it back into your pocket as you came through the door. This list is evidently important, probably a list of tasks you need to complete before you leave. The first two at least, 'cancel newspaper' and 'gas meter reading', suggest a departure from home. Indeed, with all visible items on that list crossed out in pencil – that very stub of pencil that you have wedged behind your ear - you must be nearing the end of the list: also a sign of your imminent departure."

"So why Africa? I could be going to Chicago."

"Please…an easier point to discover than the last. Your face and hands, though not currently tanned, show the kind of damage caused by prolonged exposure to intense sun. You have spent much of your life near the equator, but not recently. People are creatures of habit, Dr Sterndale, their lives running in circles. You're likely returning to a place you've gone many times before. Why Africa, then, instead of some other tropical place? Your keychain, the one I see sticking out of the pocket of your jeans, has a curious memento hanging from it. If I'm not mistaken, it's the canine tooth of a lion set in gold. Now, you can buy such trinkets if you know the right sources and have the means, but this tooth shines with the polish of long handling – you finger it regularly, as though it has some special importance to you. In taking your hand when you entered, I noticed that the flesh at the base of your right thumb bears a deep scar – a scar that might be caused by the puncture of just such a tooth as you have - simple, then, to assume that the tooth is a trophy from a personal and harrowing encounter with the very beast from which it came. There are other signs, of course, but these are enough to leave me certain of your plans."

The silence left in the wake of Holmes' demonstration had a buzzing energy all of its own. Watson unzipped his jacket and pressed his cold hands to his damp and ruddy neck, struggling between exasperation and pride. His heart was racing and he felt a great stirring deep inside him that would take a long walk to settle down again. Sterndale was at first unreadable, though he soon broke into a bearlike grin.

"You are a magician, Mr Holmes." He shook Sherlock's hand a second time. "Correct on every point!"

"Didn't I tell you, Leon?"

"I hardly liked to hope, Bill! Well, Mr Holmes? What of our troubles, eh? I'm sorry that I shall be so soon away. Ordinarily, I'd offer my help. I want to know what's happening in our little village here."

"Sherlock will give what time he can to the case, Doctor Sterndale, though he's mainly here to—" Watson began, feeling more than ever like an assistant…a handler.

"I expect to have the problem fully in hand in short order, Dr Sterndale."

John turned to challenge Holmes. "It's his first priority, though, to rest. Sherlock's health has been suffering."

"Nonsense, John! I've never been happier. It'll be my pleasure to set things right in Tregannick, if I can."

"Oh, you can, Mr Sherlock, I'm sure of it!" the vicar interjected.

A sudden face at the window behind Sherlock sent John's heart skyrocketing and brought an uncontrolled yelp from his throat. It was the face of a young man, who waved at the vicar through the rain-streaked glass. William beckoned him in. The slender youth shook out his umbrella and stepped quietly into the hall, where he remained, the sitting room being now too full to comfortably accept him.

"Hullo! I hope you don't mind my coming in. Sorry about the rain," the youth began in a quiet, lilting voice. "Hello, Leon."

"Mortimer!" the vicar said. "Good timing! May I introduce Mr Sherlock Holmes, Mortimer, and his… this is his compani…er…friend, _Doctor_ Watson – beg pardon! Gentlemen, this is Mortimer Tregennis. Sherlock's come because of my letter, Mortimer!"

"I see. I hope you haven't had too bad a journey, Mr Holmes. Trains to Cornwall are notorious."

"It wasn't a bad trip." Watson interjected, feeling himself at risk of fading into the wallpaper. Holmes was a hound on the scent, forgoing niceties.

"Are you Mr Tregennis of Tregannick Wartha, where there's been some trouble with a peeping tom?"

"That _is_ my family, Mr Holmes, yes. My brothers and sister live in that house. They built it five years ago – just off the road to Pendrick Bay. They tore a lovely old home down to build it, too. It's the stupidly big one with the lights never off. You can see a mile out at sea. No wonder they get the wrong sort of attention."

Mortimer gave a chuckle, though the vicar remained sober-faced.

"I don't know how you can rest easy, my boy! There's something nasty in the area! Isn't that right, Leon?"

The huge man grumbled his agreement.

"Mortimer lodges with me, Mr Holmes," the vicar continued. "My house is too big for just an old codger to live there by himself."

Mortimer picked up his umbrella again and shuffled his feet.

"I'm sorry for barging in. I won't keep you. I only stopped because I was looking for you, William. You weren't answering your phone."

"It never gets a signal down here."

"Right. I wanted to ask if I could borrow your car tonight. I'm going to dinner at my brothers'."

"In the evening? _This_ evening?"

"Well, William, that is when people usually eat dinner. I can wait until morning, but it would probably have gone cold by then."

"Oh, go on. Make fun of an old man's fears. That's right!"

"And I think it's going to rain."

"Y-fine. Fine! Come back up to the house with me. I'll give you the keys before I forget. But I don't like to think of you up there on that lonely road with a fiend on the loose, be it from this world or the next!"

Leon Sterndale said he had to be on his way as well, and the three men filed out the door, the vicar shouting housekeeping pointers as he went. When the door closed behind him, a sudden stillness moved in. Quiet at last, the cottage seemed no bigger now that there were just the two of them inside.

Though the day was still crawling towards noon, the sky was darker, even, than it had been on their arrival. Rain pelted the wobbly old glass of the front window, and Holmes peered through it as best he could, watching the strange assemblage of characters hurrying on their way down the ancient lane, until they disappeared around a corner.

Holmes then turned into the room, switched on a few lamps, and flung himself into the only armchair. He pulled a pen and his little notebook from his trouser pocket and began scribbling.

Watson found himself, for the second time in two days, standing in the kitchen doorway and glaring at Holmes, willing him to read his thoughts. He hadn't even had the luxury of time to remove his jacket. He could feel the book in his pocket pressing over his heart.

"One hour."

"Did you say something?"

"I was hoping for a single hour, Sherlock, before you launched yourself into this, whatever this is, this problem. Maybe long enough to read a newspaper."

"Mm-hmm."

"Or-or walk down to the harbour, kick a few stones-"

"That so?"

"-and get our bearings. Maybe even enough time for a cup of coffee."

"Go ahead, John. Do. Though none for me, thank you."

"Instead_…_instead, you show off to this Doctor Sterndale.

"Interesting man."

"Yes, and he's going to Africa, _apparently_."

"A simple enough deduction."

"Simple?"

"For me."

"But what has it got to do, with-with anything that matters, Sherlock?"

Holmes began to come around to the conversation as it met with his current mental occupation.

"So difficult to tell at first."

"Nothing, Sherlock, you bloody show-off. It has no bearing at all. You tax yourself, demonstrate your 'terrible powers' as you would have it, astonish the locals and – and for what? May I remind you—"

"Remind me."

"-that you are, firstly, here for your own health, that you're not yourself, that you shouldn't be overworking your brain-"

"I'm not overworking my brain."

"-but you _should_ be giving yourself a rest-"

"I'm not overworking! John-"

"-for my sake, for the sake of our friendship, Sherlock, if not for your own health."

"Sit down, will you?"

"I'm tired, Sherlock."

"I know."

"I'm so tired."

"Sit. Please."

"Of this. Of this constant-"

"I have no intention to do anything more on the case for the rest of the day."

The silence which followed had the faintest scent of understanding. The rain continued to tap icily at the window. John remained where he was, but he moved his hands to his back pockets and studied the slate floor.

"No?"

"Definitely not. What case have we _got_ at present? Well?"

"Well-"

"Nothing! A break-in and a superstitious priest."

"I suppose-"

"Have we?"

"No, I suppose that's true enough."

"It's quite true. Remember that it was William's fear of evils to _come_ that piqued my interest, rather than the petty points he reluctantly divulged in the letter."

"I'm not sure about _reluctantly_," John replied, beginning to relax. "The man's the human equivalent of popcorn."

"We wait. To let the brain work without material really is like racing an engine. It shakes itself apart. The sea air, rain," he said with a flourishing gesture, "in place of sunshine, and patience, John - all else will come.

"Right. Good," he whispered, feeling the knots in his stomach begin to loosen. "Good."

Holmes continued writing.

"Though, perhaps you'd be kind enough to see if there is coffee to be had. The stuff on the train was dismal, and it's been a tedious morning."

"Hasn't it just. I'll take our things upstairs first, if you don't mind."

Holmes made no reply and, not expecting one, John did as he liked. He lugged their bags up the narrow, twisting stair, found the door of one bedroom open, threw Sherlock's bag onto the bed, then went to find a second bedroom for himself.

There wasn't one.

"_Sherlock_!"

* * *

Undecided which should be heavier from now on: the 'mystery' or the 'romance' elements. Have an opinion? Want to see something specific? Leave a comment! Thx. :)


	5. Numbers

Seventy seven.

He could have wept with discomfort.

Seventy eight.

The wind's low groan in the chimney…

Seventy nine.

...made him think of the dead.

Eighty.

Whole families lived and died…

Eighty one.

Within these white walls. But he could bet…

Eighty two.

…they at least got a decent night's sleep.

Eighty three.

Even the dead had one up on him.

John swung his aching legs off the settee he'd been trying to make friends with for three hours. His hip joints protested every movement as he got to his feet and minced over to the window. It was utterly dark beyond the glass, except for the cold blue sweep (eighty five) from the lighthouse at the end of the sea wall. Only the sound of the rain against the windows told him that the storm blew on, having never relented once all that day. He shivered in his bones, even with a blanket wrapped around his shoulders.

It had been a pleasant day, otherwise. They'd gone to the co-op and paid an extortionate amount for frozen pizza, beans, cereal, and a jug of milk. The added weight of the grocery bags and the steepness of the road had left John feeling like he could have skidded the full distance back to the cottage. His knees didn't thank him for fooling around, careening away on heavy footfalls, nor for the jolt Sherlock gave them by grabbing hold of his belt to slow him down, suggesting, in mock-conspiracy, that they keep a low profile.

That afternoon, after a sodden walk over the tidal sands at the harbourside, John had fallen asleep for hours, curled up under the same blanket, and on the same settee that refused to comfort him now. Sherlock, true to his promise to drop the case for the rest of the day, had been sitting in the chair by the window, reading, when John had fallen asleep. He was still there, to John's great satisfaction, when he'd woken up, his only sign of activity being the lovely scent of baking pizza wafting from the kitchen. John had been so easy, so restful that afternoon. What was different now?

For one thing, his feet were freezing. Even with two pairs of socks on, the slate flooring sapped all warmth and left him aching. He had to get off them, warm up, sleep, or he'd be useless in the morning.

John looked over at the dim corner of the room where the stairs led to the upper floor, and the bedroom. He felt a heaviness in his stomach.

On discovering that they'd only one bedroom, John had immediately proposed that he'd sleep on the settee; his afternoon nap was meant to prove that it would not only be possible, but enjoyable, despite the fact that it was a full twelve inches too short even for his modest frame. Sherlock had made some early noises about the possibility of sharing, that it would be no trouble, but John had been adamant, and Sherlock had been more than usually quiet after that.

It was lonely in any sitting room after dark, doubly so here in a strange house during a night-time storm. The blue flash across the ceiling again highlighted the odd angles of the walls, the curve of the support beams, the cave-like quality of the room.

And something else: in the opposite corner from the stairs. A figure.

_No!_

John looked harder, straining his aging eyes and pulling the blanket tightly around him. There was a… blackness in that corner, deeper than the midnight gloom around it. The vision made his heart pound and stopped his breath.

_…seeing things. Right?_

It was the shape of a figure, he was sure of it! With arms…arms stretched out to him. He saw it there. He shook his head, screwed his eyes shut.

It grew, and it shifted.

Then it was more than a space of deeper dark. There was a face.

He saw a face floating, eyes… mouth… there! _There._ In the corner. In livid tones, like a retina burn, just beyond the edge of conscious sight. It was there!

The unseeable face hovered, just below head height, far, then near, then far again, its cavern mouth a borehole into the heart of darkness. It shifted again. The mouth closed, and John launched himself at the stairs, banging his shins off the sharp edge of the second step, barely feeling his feet touch wood as he bounded up, three at a time. His back tingled, felt on fire.

By the time, mere seconds, he had closed the bedroom door behind him, John was bathed in sweat and his mouth was wide, gulping silent breaths. He was also certain that his eyes had been playing tricks on him in the odd light of the sitting room. He knew that he was a fool.

Sherlock wouldn't have behaved so foolishly. He would have known. He would have _thought_. John tried to slow his breathing, and wiped his forehead with his trembling forearm.

_Sherlock_.

There he was, serene in sleep, his long limbs and strong back suggested by the folds of the cotton sheet he slept under. John's opposite. He noted that Sherlock occupied only the far side of the bed. Had he expected…?

_No_.

There was no way John could retreat to the sitting room now. _Too full of ghosts_, he mused, fear ebbing from him like the tide from the shore. The same blue sweep of the harbour light flashed across the ceiling, though here it was no more than a serene reminder that they were by the sea, and on holiday. By the time John had eased himself onto the mattress, his knees had just about ceased to shake.

He stretched out alongside the still, heavy form of Sherlock and found himself enveloped by the heat and scent of the man – sharp vetiver and sandalwood.

"John?" came his voice, more a breath than a whisper.

"I saw a ghost." _Idiot!_

"Oh." There was a long sigh. The harbour light swept again, picking out his crest of wild curls against his pillow. "I'm glad."

John rolled onto his side and inched back until they were nearly touching.

"Good night."

John closed his eyes and buried his face in his pillow, hugging it to him, anchoring himself to the moment.

"Night, Sherlock."

By the time Sherlock twisted around and rested one elegant hand across his hip, John was fast asleep.

* * *

R&R? :)


	6. John

That night, John dreamt of being in the embrace of a cold, blue ocean which nevertheless sighed hotly against his neck each time its waves swept through and around him. He was safe in the strong arms of the sea. On land, unknown dangers lurked and preyed...

He woke refreshed – brilliantly refreshed; John greeted the grey morning and began his routine stretches – those his physiotherapist taught him after he was shot. He'd been following her routine every morning for nearly three years, and every time he did, he remembered that period in his life when she was the only good, kind thing in it. It made him grateful in ways she could never have expected.

John had the bedroom to himself, though he couldn't remember Sherlock getting up. Well, he had the bed to himself. The floor was a disaster zone. He also couldn't recall hearing Holmes, apparently, fling the contents of his suitcase gustily over the floorboards, nor take a shower for which every single guest towel was required.

Maybe Sherlock was right; maybe he wasn't as observant as he could or should be.

What he did notice was the smell of coffee rising from the kitchen. _There_, he thought: he was good at picking out the most important details.

John grinned to himself with an immense feeling of self-satisfaction.

"You're thinking," Sherlock declared, without looking up from his paper.

"Am I?"

"Obviously. Well? Anything of interest?"

"Actually, I was thinking about you."

"Hm. Very interesting, then."

Watson's grin stretched, and he pulled a second piece of toast onto his plate and dug into the butter tub.

"Anything you'd care to share?"

John pointed at him with the butter knife. "I was thinking about something you said to me the night before we came here, back in Baker Street."

"What was that?"

John paused, careful to let the depth of hurt he'd felt at the time leave no inflection in his retelling of events. "You-you said that you were disappointed in me, that I hadn't learned anything of your methods over the years."

Holmes dropped his paper into his lap, fanning crumbs from his plate all over the tablecloth. He looked hard at John, who kept his own gaze on his toast while he carefully spread marmite to its four corners.

"Did I?"

"You did, Sherlock. Don't you remember?"

"I—"

"But haven't you also said," John hurried, not really wanting to know how much of their life passed directly through Sherlock's brain and into his mental rubbish bin. "Haven't you said, countless times, that your methods aren't special to you, that anybody can learn them?"

"True, very true. Even you can learn them. Actually, of anybody, you've been in the best position to learn them. So, naturally, I was a bit put out the other day, when you-"

"Sherlock, I'd pulled a double shift at the clinic!" he protested. "I was half asleep and hardly thinking."

"Oh?"

"I _have_ learned a thing or two, as it happens. In fact, you caught me smiling just now because…this morning, I think I can read you just as well as you could read me."

"Impossible. I read you like…" John gave him a challenging stare. "Can you indeed?" he swerved. "Go on, then. What're you seeing now, as I sit here reading a paper?"

John dropped his knife and wielded his toast, pointing at Holmes with one of its corners. "Well, you were fairly preoccupied when you got up this morning."

"Was it the mess I left in the bedroom?"

"No! No, you do that all the time. It's because you usually shave every morning before breakfast, but, I _observe_ that this morning you've forgotten to and now I can see that your beard, if you can grow a proper one at all, is ginger."

"Mycroft tried a moustache once. I paid him to stop."

"Won't hold it against you."

"How very clever! I didn't know you watched me so closely. Have you found anything else?"

"You have no idea," he said, feeling encouraged and taking a bite. "You have a client named Barlow - who, I should add, you've never told me about - and you haven't been successful with his case."

"Oh? How did you get that impression?"

"I saw the name pop up on your phone when it buzzed half an hour ago. The look on your face told me the rest – you're obviously avoiding him."

"I am, in fact, avoiding Barlow." Holmes murmured, folding his paper roughly. "He and I have an…awkward relationship."

John cocked his head to one side, his brow creasing. "_Relationship?_"

"Hm. Have had for a very long time."

"Because of a case?"

Holmes paused before answering, as if struggling for the right words.

"Bit more personal than that, actually."

There was nothing John could do to hide the colour that rose to his cheeks and the grin it produced on the man sitting opposite him only made it worse. John worried afresh about his observational skills; a relationship… that word.

"John?"

What did he mean? What kind? How long? Why the avoidance? Who is this man? A _man_? A man. Christ. Why had Sherlock never mentioned him? Wasn't John his best friend? Could he live with the existence of this Barlow? Bastard. Was it off? When were they on? What did this mean…for _everything_?

"John?"

"Sorry."

"Are you okay?"

"Fine. Why wouldn't I be?" he snapped, more aggressively than was even conceivably called for.

"Any other points you'd care to mention?"

"No, no those were the main ones. Forget it. I just…I'm not completely useless to you, I hope?"

"Not completely, no…"

"_But_?"

"Not perfect."

"So, I've got something else wrong." The day had started so well, and now they were stuck, living practically on top of each other for who knows how many more days. He felt the need to get out, run, get some space. Could he explain himself to Sherlock? Like hell. Holmes, on the other hand, appeared completely oblivious to John's raging discomfort.

"Let's take your points as you made them, shall we? Which came first? My unfortunate ginger beard. I didn't shave, not because I've been driven to distraction, but because I forgot to pack my razor yesterday in trying to rush out the door."

"Really?"

"'Fraid so."

They sat in silence while John's toast, now cold and cloying, caught in the back of his throat and threatened to gag him. It would have been a welcome distraction.

"And… Barlow? Does…does he…have a first name?"

"Jerry."

_Jerry. What sort of a prepostero—_

"He's my dentist."

"He is?"

"I forgot that I had an appointment with him this morning. The call was a reminder. I've missed it, now."

"And you…you…"

"Hate the dentist's. Always have. Glad that's not _too_ obvious, I suppose."

"Not… not a secret, um… Not a secret case, then?"

"No. Have I really never mentioned Doctor Barlow to you?"

"No, Sherlock."

"I've been seeing him since I was five, and he was old then; incredible that the man's still alive."

"Dentist…" John mouthed with empty lungs.

"It hardly matters. Nothing can be done about my missed appointment, but I hold out some hope that you might lend me your razor. John, you didn't think—"

"It's in the bathroom."

"Oh. Ta."

A sudden flurry of fistfalls on the front door had them both out of their seats in an instant. John didn't know whether he was coming or going. He felt dizzy and disoriented, and it wasn't from getting out of his chair too suddenly. He did his best to consciously unlock his jaw.

Holmes reached the door first, and all the while he was struggling with the unfamiliar locks, they could hear William almost whimpering on the other side. When Sherlock flung the door wide, the vicar came in without invitation, and the gentle young man named Mortimer followed him inside. Both looked shell-shocked, none more so than William, who barely had a voice with which to say two terrible words:

"She's dead!"


	7. Job

"Oh, Mr Holmes!" William wailed. "The most terrible thing has happened. Just shocking business! Evil walks among us! Thank heavens you came when you did! It's Providence – Providence! - that you're here."

Whatever had fractured John and Sherlock in the previous few minutes was swept away by the old man's call to action. Their eyes met, and in an instant they were a team again, better than their individual halves.

John took the man by the elbow and guided him to a seat. He nearly tripped the vicar by stepping on the untied, muddy shoelaces dragging behind him, and he noticed as well how badly he'd mis-buttoned his cardigan, how hay-like his uncombed hair. William refused a cup of tea on the grounds that there wasn't time.

Mortimer, barely noticeable behind the flurry of William, trailed in behind, grim-faced, but collected and neat about his person. He was the first to speak when they were all seated.

"Perhaps I should explain why we're here, Mr Holmes."

"Well," Holmes declared, "as you seem to have made the discovery, Mortimer, whatever it was, and William to have had it from you, yes, you should explain. Quickly."

"How did you know it was him who found out first?" William posed, prepared to be astonished yet again.

"Just look at you," John blurted while Sherlock was gathering breath.

Holmes turned to John with a look that would strengthen him throughout the horrific day that would follow: surprise, certainly; pride, and something akin to ownership shone in those sea-green eyes.

"You're right. It was me!" Mortimer confessed, unable to delay sharing his terrible news a second longer. "Oh, God! What I've seen today – I'll be haunted…_Haunted!_ Forgive me, Mr Holmes." Mortimer broke off, pressing the heels of his hands to his eye sockets, unable to speak more.

John's thoughts went instantly to his unnerving experience the previous night. He had convinced himself that he saw nothing in the corner of the room but tricks of the light, and he had been so well satisfied by that explanation that his memory and fear had fallen away from his mind until Mortimer's words recalled them.

"William, you know the full details of what's happened?" Sherlock snapped, turning on the vicar.

"I believe so, as far as—"

"Then speak quickly, but leave out nothing. The important and the unimportant facts are indistinguishable at this early stage of the game."

"The game, Mr Holmes?"

"He means the _case_," Watson interjected, clearing his throat.

"I mean the case."

"Do you remember that Mortimer was to spend last night having dinner with his brothers, Owen and George, and his sister, Brenda, at their house, Tredannick Wartha? The very house I wrote about in my letter to you?"

"I remember."

"Well, they had dinner, just as planned, and he left them shortly before ten o'clock, playing cards. They had a lovely time!" William paused to breathe and they heard the quiet sound of Mortimer gathering himself.

"Mmmm…nothing standing out so far," Holmes urged. It was Mortimer himself who carried on.

"I went for a walk this morning just after dawn, Mr Holmes. I never sleep late, even at the weekend. I was out on the bypass road when a car pulled up behind me, beeping its horn…gave me a fright. It was our local GP, Dr Richards. He said he'd just had an urgent call to my brothers' house. I got in the car, and we drove off."

"Why was he called?"

"Well, when we got to the house, we found…we found that my two brothers and my sister were seated at the table exactly as I'd left them, the cards still on the table in front of them and their wine glasses still full. My sister, God, my poor sister was dead-dead in her chair—"

"What?" Watson breathed, shocked.

"—while Owen and George sat on each side of her laughing and shouting, and singing… like they were out of their minds! The horrible things they were saying…!"

"All three of them," the vicar continued, "had a look of horror on their faces – night-nightmarish looks, says Mortimer."

"How awful," Watson murmured, thoughts of his own haunting the previous night intensifying in his mind and giving him gooseflesh.

"Is this true, Mortimer?" Sherlock pressed.

"Yes, Mr Holmes."

"I must ask you a few more questions before we leave."

"Only if you feel up to it, Mortimer," John added.

"He has no choice if he wants our help," Holmes cut.

Mortimer was wringing his hands unconsciously, and already his pale knuckles were red and sore. "Ask what you like, Mr Holmes."

"Tell me _exactly_ how the evening progressed."

"Well, after we ate, my brother George suggested we play a game of gin rummy in the parlour. It was a cold night and they had the gas fire going in there; it was more pleasant than in the kitchen. That was always too big—"

"So you were in the parlour," Holmes pressed.

"We-we discussed my brother's upcoming marriage, and our neighbour's - Dr Sterndale's - plans for his stay in Africa, and the break-in at his house, which made my sister a bit nervous." Emotion began to well again in the back of Mortimer's throat, thickening his gentle voice. "It was only conversation to digest over, nothing important. We sat down about nine o'clock. It can't have been an hour later when I said I had to go. I left them still playing cards at the table, as happy as could be – happy as could be."

"Who let you out?"

"No one. I let myself out. I shut the hall door behind me, and the main door, too. I made sure it was locked. Even though I don't live there, I have my own key. The windows were all shut… Well, you saw the weather last night."

"Tell me exactly what you saw when you went back there with the doctor this morning."

"The house looked just the same from the outside. The doors and the windows were all still shut and locked, just as I'd left them. Not like at Sterndale's where the window got smashed in. I don't know, but, the halogen light pots in the ceiling must have overheated and switched themselves off at some point. The gas fire was still burning, and the room was hot and airless. The three of them, my sister and my two brothers, must have been sitting there in the dark until… The doctor said Brenda must have been dead at least six hours. It didn't look like anyone had… She just lay across the arm of the chair with that look on her face." Mortimer began to cry, and William put a fatherly hand across his shoulders. "George and Owen were singing bits of rude songs and making noises like animals. Oh, it was terrible to see! I couldn't stand it. Even the doctor went as white as a sheet the moment he stepped into the room. He fell into a chair in a sort of faint, and we nearly had him dead on our hands as well. He left me…to-to find them first!"

"And no signs of intrusion at all?"

"With everything that's been happening lately – the peeping tom, the burglary - I'm a careful man, Mr Holmes. As upset as I was, I saw no reason to think that a stranger had been in the house."

"Who phoned for a doctor?"

"That was Mrs Porter, the neighbour. She's over there most mornings. She looks after things, thinks they need a bit of mothering, or some such thing. She's a good woman. The state she was in this morn—"

"I see."

"I can only say that…that they looked as though they went mad with fear, Mr Holmes, and it looked like Brenda _died_ of fright! I'll never get the sight of that room out of my mind as long as I live!"

"Wonderful!"

Mortimer began crying in earnest.

"Sherlock!" John chastised, rising.

"I have no idea what could have happened to them!" Mortimer wailed, barely coherent.

William could remain silent no longer. "Some horror, then - who can say what it was? - has frightened a woman to death and two strong young men out of their senses. And that's the whole of it. Oh, what are we to do?"

"The whole? I think not, William - far from the whole of it."

"That poor woman," John whispered.

"How far to the house?" Holmes asked.

"About a mile," the vicar answered. "The house stands by the old stone cross on the moor. Oh! Is that significant do you think?"

"No."

"It's devilish, all the same, devilish! It's not of this world. Something went into that room which caused them to lose their minds, something which can go through locked doors and windows. What human or natural cause could there be?"

"William, if the explanation is beyond humanity and nature then it's certainly beyond me and I'm best left to my breakfast."

"Oh, you wouldn't leave us now!"

"I only mean that we have to consider _everything_ else before we come to the supernatural."

"Yes. My apologies. You-you're right, of course."

"As for you, Mortimer. Isn't it strange that three of four siblings enjoy the use of a large modern house, while their brother is left to find the cheapest sort of housing?"

"I try to keep a fair house…I do…" murmured the vicar, with a troubled brow.

"Sherlock means no offence," John whispered, "he's just making a point."

"I-I won't deny that money came between us, a while back. My parents owned some property, and after they died, that property was sold off. Sure, there were family disagreements, but that's water under the bridge, Mr Holmes. I just prefer a simpler life, that's all."

"And not a single unusual thing stands out in your memory from yesterday."

"I hardly like to mention it but, my sister, she, at one point, she thought she saw someone through the window, a dark figure, not one she could see at all clearly."

Watson's stomach sunk to his shoes. He knew he was being irrational. He knew that what he had seen in the corner of the sitting room and what happened at the house had nothing in common…he knew. He knew.

"Where?"

"In the garden, around by the bushes. I turned around to look, but by then…I saw nothing."

"Again, Mortimer?" William said. "Oh, what could it be, Mr Holmes?"

"When was this?"

"It might have been eight…ten past eight. We were in the middle of dinner."

"When did you return home?"

"Ten o'clock, or thereabouts."  
"Yes! Yes, Mortimer, you did. I remember you coming in just as the news was coming on the telly."

Holmes steepled his fingers. "Remarkable…most remarkable!"

All four rose to their feet without another word. They would go to Tregannick Wartha, and quickly, before the police made their merry way from Penzance. The one thing Holmes was thankful for about police presence in such a rural area was the total lack of it. It gave him the necessary time.

"And…Doctor Watson's coming, too?" the vicar enquired.

"Oh, he must," answered Holmes. "Doctor Watson is invaluable to me." As they squeezed through the door, Holmes pressed a hand into the small of John's back. "And I think he's starting to learn the trick."

"He's learning to _what_?"


	8. Revelations

Sorry for the delay in updating, folks! I've been out braving the Canadian Wilderness for a week. Hope I've been missed ;)

* * *

"Why a fire?" Sherlock posed, raising his wine to his lips.

John burst a roasted cherry tomato against his palate; felt the warm seeds spill over his tongue. "A fire?"

"Mm," Holmes voiced, fogging the glass. "In the parlour. It's a small room, well, small for that house. It wasn't so cold a night. Their neighbour, that Porter woman… She collapsed when she went in, it was so overheated."

"She was in a state, Sherlock. There _were_ three people…you know."

"Mortimer said it was for him, coming in out of the storm."

"True," John accepted, chasing sauce around his plate with a morsel of chicken. "He isn't exactly the most robust man I've seen. We can't all be human furnaces. Like you."

Sherlock looked askance at John across the dinner table. "No."

"In any case, I feel sorry for him."

"Sorry?"

"Dragging him back there this morning, again, after everything that's happened. Nasty business. Did you see the look on that poor girl's face?"

"Of course."

"Frightened to death… it happens in stories, in horror films… who'd think it could happen in real life?"

"William thought so," Holmes mused.

"Do you…are you suggesting he was expecting this to happen?"

"Clearly he thought it a possibility."

"He never said so."

"No. What's he holding back? He knows…something."

The pair lapsed into lazy silence as John finished his dinner. He would never get used to the speed at which Sherlock could eat when he was hungry. The meal they'd prepared – late, after a busy day filled with sorrowing and fearful people – had invited them back into a private space of comfort and reflection.

John's legs ached and he unbended his stiff knees under the table. Anywhere they'd needed to go that day had been either far uphill, or down, or in most cases, both. Tired as he was, it was a physical satisfaction to have exercised himself, and the endorphins mixed with two glasses of red in his bloodstream lulled him and left him able to enjoy every mouthful, every sound, every sight the evening had to offer. He could tell that even the distraction of this latest mental puzzle only marginally removed Sherlock from the same pleasant state.

John was coasting on the satisfaction, too, of being useful that day, not just as a medical man but because he knew how to comfort the traumatised. He had seen death, and had talked countless people through the effects of witnessing the sudden passing of friends in that other life as a soldier, the one he lived before Sherlock gave him a new one.

William's reaction to the tragedy was that of a family member. If anything, he appeared doubly affected by Brenda's death compared to her own brother, after the initial shock had worn off, though John had known many men who dealt with loss as Mortimer was doing – with silence and emotional retreat. Those were the ones, he knew from long experience, to worry about the most.

Sherlock lifted the half-empty bottle and studied it against the light of the lamp on the table. Both were under-lit, their colours and contours intensified, their features defined.

"You spent a lot of time outside the house this morning."

Sherlock turned his eyes to John again. "Yes, because it'd been raining—"

"—any signs, such as footmarks, would have appeared clearly."

The corners of Sherlock's mouth rose in the ghost of a smile while he refilled John's glass. "Correct."

"And…did you? Find anything, I mean?"

"No."

"Shame."

"Frustrating, more like." Sherlock mused, lifting a drop that ran down the neck of the bottle and pressing it to his lips. "The problem is that we have so few facts and so _much _superstitious nonsense. What do we actually _know_, John?"

"Know?"

"Yes, what _are_ the facts? What framework can we build on?"

John pushed back from the table and gave Sherlock his full attention. "Well, we can rule out most of William's ideas, to start with."

"Mm, let's leave the Devil out of it, I think. Three people have been grievously harmed by some natural or human agent. Yes?"

"Uh-huh."

"So there's our kernel. Now, for a few basic facts about circumstances: when did Brenda die and her brothers go mad?"

"After Mortimer left the house."

"Not only that…it happened _very soon _after he left, within minutes, even. That is, if you and he and that GP can be trusted about your timing—"

"You can trust me."

Holmes eyes smiled as he ran one finger around the rim of his glass. "Plus, the state of the room proves that they're telling the truth. The victims were positioned exactly as Mortimer left them, with the cards and full glasses still on the table."

"So, another fact, then."

"Another fact. Our next obvious step is to consider Mortimer's movements after he left the house. From our own drive out there, we know that it takes twelve minutes to get from the house to the village. William claims to have heard him return at ten o'clock."

"True. He must've gone straight back to the vicarage, in that case…"

"…putting him above suspicion. So whatever or whoever it was entered the room immediately after his departure, but without him noticing."

"Then who, Sherlock? With the doors and windows locked? And what could possibly have frightened them enough to actually…? Not Mrs Porter?"

Holmes waved off the suggestion. "She's harmless."

"Then, it was whatever Brenda saw at dinner, outside, through the window."

"Yes, but I'd have seen evidence of a prowler outside on the ground," Holmes growled, rising and lifting their plates from the table."It won't do!"

"Here, let me get those."

"You cooked. I've got them. No, it won't do."

"Eh?"

"Here we are, back in a world of ghosts and whispers. We need more facts or we might as well call in a medium."

John brought their glasses into the dim kitchen so they could continue their discussion there, but Sherlock fell silently to work, occupying his hands while his mind was elsewhere. The lamplight from the sitting room threw a golden wedge through the open door, and John's eyes needed a moment to adjust, so he watched his friend. Sherlock filled the sink and rolled his shirtsleeves to his elbows, removed his watch, and threw a tea towel over one arm. John leaned against the counter and watched him from behind, noticing the strong angles of his shoulders in the light, his enviably slender waist.

God, he'd had too much to drink.

"Do you want…would you like me to get the…the ceiling light?" John asked, feeling the need to be useful again and to break his preoccupation.

"I'm fine. Could you pass me that pan?"

John put it into Sherlock's wet hands, hearing water drip across the countertop. He closed the space between them and slid the towel from Sherlock's arm. He felt that heat again, and it reminded him that he was cold. He bit his bottom lip, recalling the previous night.

John was on his final stroke across the countertop when Sherlock's hand reached out to lay hold of the cloth, and instead came down awkwardly on John's own.

"Sorry."

"It's…" John cleared his throat. "No worries."

But Sherlock didn't move his hand. He let it rest heavy, hot and wet; his long fingers were steady, not pressing, not lifting. John's heart was in his throat. He knew he couldn't look up, afraid of what he would see there. He tried to will himself to pull his hand away, and found that he couldn't. He pressed himself to the edge of the counter instead. _I yell at him, hit him, laugh with him, stare him in the face. I have. I can. What is this? _An understanding was creeping up on him. A frightening…

"J-John, are—"

Four heavy knocks on the door broke the moment. Sherlock was away in an instant, and John nearly dropped to his knees. He threw the damp towel into the still-full sink, brain buzzing and eyes pressed shut while he listened to the drama playing out in the hall.

"Dr Sterndale?" _God, that voice. How haven't I…?_

"I hope I haven't interrupted you, Holmes?"

"No."

John couldn't press out the bitter laugh welling in his tightening chest.

"It's too much, Holmes! The police are utterly useless!"

"Forgive me, but I thought you were already on your way to—"

"I was at the departure gate when William phoned me. At the gate, and just about to turn my mobile off. Almost makes me believe there is a God."

"And you came all the way back here?"

"Of course."

"You've missed your flight."

"I'll get another."

"I… William filled you in on the details?"

"As much as he could. I had to come back."

"Any particular reason why?"

John thought the brief silence that followed Sherlock's question had a deadly scent. He stepped toward the hall, but remained around the corner and out of sight.

"The Tregennises are my neighbours, Holmes. That might not mean anything to a London boy like you; out here… they were… _are_ like family. I had to come back." John heard a sudden _thunk_ against the wall by the door. "And never you mind about me! What matters, Holmes, is what you expect to do about it."

"I'm waiting, Dr Sterndale."

"Waiting," Sterndale echoed in a condemning tone. "Then my coming here tonight was a waste. As's your coming to Tredannick at all, speaking freely. Waiting…" John heard the front door wrench open. "For what? A sign? What good have you done us? I see no point in you staying on here."

Sterndale's next comment was taken away on the night air, though John felt he got the gist of it. The door slammed shut and all was still for a time.

When John rounded the corner, it was to see Sherlock sweep past him and up the stairs.

"Sherlock?"

"Not now, John. Too much to think about."

John grabbed his coat and shoved his feet into his boots. He would take a long walk. When he got back, he hoped to be tired enough to fall asleep anywhere, even on that blasted settee.


	9. Agony

"John?"

He woke with one foot and one hand on the gritty sitting room floor, his face wedged into the back of the seat cushion of the settee, and Sherlock casting a shadow over his back in the late morning light. His heart hurt. His lungs hurt. His head…

"John, are you awake?"

"Hmmm." He felt a hand grasp his shoulder, urging him to sit up. He loved and hated the touch. "What…hmmm…time is it?"

"After ten. John—" murmured the low, soothing voice.

"Mus' slept late. Dunno when I got in." He scraped his face off of the settee and turned his stiff neck, prying one eye open at a time and letting out a long moan of remembrance.

"About three."

"You were awake?"

"Of course. Look—"

"Why've you got a coat on?"

"William."

"He's here?" John started, bringing himself fully upright and pulling his aching legs under him.

"No, that's just it. He isn't here."

"Um…"

"I expected him this morning, early. He hasn't come and he hasn't phoned. We should walk up to the vicarage and find out why."

"Do we…can't it wait until after…coffee? I'm not really feeling…erm, all that well this morning."

"I'm sorry, John, but we should go. Call it a gut instinct."

"If you want." John disliked the taste of those words in his mouth, but he'd spat them out before he could think of better.

John rose to his feet as best he could and tugged on the front of his sleep-rumpled cardigan. He found his boots where he'd flung them the night before and jammed his feet into them. Sherlock stayed by the table where an empty wine bottle stood, neglected from the night before. He watched John move in and out of the mote-flecked sunbeams. His golden hair, salted with white around his temples, brightened the room, but he was aware, too, of the space John kept between them as he readied himself to go out, and the grim lines of his stony face.

"John, we can talk about—"

"I don't want to talk about it."

"No, but we ought—"

"We ought to have talked about it last night."

"We were interrupted…"

John stopped on the mat in the hall and turned on Sherlock. "Not according to you, remember?"

"But what else could—"

"Oh look, it's Africa Man come to call. Stupidly late. Do come in. No, sir, nothing happening here, nothing that can't be put off indef—"

"What was I meant to say?" Sherlock interrupted, his voice even and low.

"Come back tomorrow?"

"I couldn't. You know that. You heard the conversation. It was too unexpected. He gave me a lot to process."

"Oh, you want to talk about _a lot to process_?"

"My head was full. I couldn't think of—"

"Sorry to hear that."

"It was the wrong time, John."

"Well, this morning's the wrong time, too."

Sherlock paused before asking the obvious question. "When is the right time?"

"How the _hell_ should I know?" John burst, fatigue and frustration getting the better of him at last. "You think I have a handle on this? Hm? You think I'm enjoying…" he cut himself off, knowing that had he not, he would have gone too far.

Sherlock had no answer for him, or at least he took the wise decision not to speak. But he wouldn't look away from John. The good doctor found it nearly impossible not to meet Sherlock's eyes, intensified in the sea-light, but he found it just as difficult to interpret the competing sentiments he found in them. He felt guilt wash over him like a stone on the shore. He hadn't stopped to consider… a great many things.

"Look," John started over in a quieter tone, "maybe-maybe we should say nothing about it _just_ now."

"Okay."

"Just…for the best."

"Fine."

"Obviously, there's too much going on at the moment."

"Agreed."

John gave a curt nod, more soldierly than he wished, and headed for the door. Sherlock followed him out and they began the long, oblique climb towards the vicarage.

It was the first brilliant day they'd seen in Cornwall, and the village was transformed into a glittering jewel box tucked into a crook of the coast. The harbour waters were impossibly bright over the white sand that famously banded the shore and the greens and yellows on the surrounding hills thrilled their eyes. John was refreshed and fortified by the walk. He felt the dark mood he'd woken under ebb away from him as he climbed higher and higher into the fresh ocean breeze. He sucked in his fill. Sherlock strode ahead of him on the hill, and John watched his curls fly and flutter, flashing auburn in the sunlight. When Sherlock turned to gaze out to where the land ended and the sea began, he appreciated afresh the line of his profile over the collar of his coat and he felt the return of a part of that warmth he'd felt the night before, before outside forces had wrenched them away. He'd been wrong to storm as he'd done that morning, but he also understood why he'd done so, and he was content to let the whole episode drain from him. He would learn from it, and be better next time. All was not ruined.

The vicarage roof peaked into view, and as the rest of the house rose over the edge of the hill, John began to feel his own gut feeling that something was wrong. Sherlock, ahead of him still, broke suddenly into a run and John followed suit. He called over his shoulder.

"John? I need you."

"I'm here! Sherlock—"

It was just seconds before he found the cause. William was collapsed, face down, over his threshold. His aluminium door banged against the wind.

"My God," John exclaimed as he flung himself down to the vicar's side. A horrible stench drifted out through the door, drying and burning his throat. Choking him.

"William?" Sherlock beckoned, bracing the door. John's eyes watered. The elderly man was shaking and evidently in distress, but coming around to full consciousness. There was blood on the doorstep where he'd split his lip on the way down.

"Mmm…Mr Sherlock? Oh, oh, oh! Dr Watson!"

"Can you sit up, William?" John asked.

"Oh! My God! My God!"

"It's alright, William. You've just had a fall."

"No! No, Dr Watson. It's… in the house."

John's stomach tightened. "What-What's inside, William?

"M-Mortimer. Oh, Mortimer! I found…I found him. I found him!"

"_What_ did you find?" Sherlock demanded, taking the man by the lapel, just short of shaking him. The old man whimpered.

"He's – oh… good Lord! – He's dead!


	10. Chapter 10

John had never known a more poisonous atmosphere: neither on the roads by burning poppy fields nor inside the Soviet oil tankers used by Afghanis to smuggle civilians over the border into Pakistan. His body protested every breath, though the windows of Mortimer's room were thrown wide open.

"What is that?" he asked of no one in particular.

"William's talking about the devil again," Holmes said, joining Watson in the small rear bedroom. "He says it's still inside."

"Where is he? Did you leave—"

"His neighbour's with him. They're phoning the police."

"Jesus."

John had just rounded the chair where Mortimer was sitting, and taken in the sight of his face. He turned away in an instant, relieving his eyes on the garden outside.

"Sherlock, look. Mortimer's… my God, his…"

Holmes did so, knitting his brow and pressing his lips into a thin line. "It's the same."

"Just the same as Brenda Tregennis's."

Watson turned back into the room. Consciously blanking the horrific image of the dead man, he studied his immediate surroundings. The room was tidy, the bed made, the shelves and open cupboard all in order. It was odd, then, that the top of the desk at which Mortimer was sitting had clearly been violently swept of its contents, laptop and all, except for an old-fashioned hurricane lamp. John reached out to touch the chimney but snapped his hand away the instant he did so: the glass was wickedly hot.

"Sherlock, this lamp's just been on."

"Yes, I'd imagine it was."

"Bit of an odd thing…do people even use these anymore?"

"Not generally. Plenty of them around, though. It adds to the country charm. Look, this one's been taken from the shelf, here. You can see the ring of its base in the dust." But Holmes wasn't looking at the lamp. He paced the room, studying the linoleum, then he darted to the window, swept his hand across the filthy outside ledge and then leaned bodily out of the frame, searching the ground outside.

"It was William who opened the windows?" John continued, noticing the white-knuckled grip the corpse still had on the arms of his chair.

"So he says…to let the devil out."

"He seems very fixed on that idea."

"You saw him," Sherlock answered from beyond the window frame. "You saw the state of him."

"What could have done it?"

Sherlock climbed back into the room and turned his attention, finally, to the lamp on the table. He pulled a rumpled copy of William's holiday leaflet from his pocket and used it to scrape a crust of black soot from the rim of the glass. John noticed that Sherlock, too, kept his eyes decidedly away from the sight of Mortimer's face.

"Take heart, John," Sherlock whispered, folding and pocketing the leaflet.

They heard the sound of a siren in the distance break through the crystalline beauty of the coastal morning.

"What?"

"I have the necessary facts."

"You've found something, then?"

He smiled. "I have."

"Good. The police are just about here. You can tell—"

"No John. We'll be gone when the police arrive. We're finished with this case."

"What? Sherlock, there's just been a second death. What do you mean, we're finished? We haven't even—"

"The police will make their own investigation. It would be…impolitic for them to find us here."

"But—"

"I'm not _abandoning_ the case, John. We've nearly got a solution. There are a few more pieces of the puzzle which need fitting into place, but, meanwhile, it wouldn't do to be accused of interfering in official police business."

"Al-alright, so…"

"We'll go by the rear door. Hopefully the police will pay attention to the sill of the open window and the lamp on the table. They'll find those two things most informative of all there is to see."

"What, more useful than Mortimer lying there dead?"

"Infinitely more so; best hope they focus on things of real importance, though I don't hold out _much_ hope. John, we should go. There's an experiment…"

"An experiment?"

"Yes, something I must do this evening, and I'll need your help."

"Right. Sure, of course."

"But there's something I need you to do before then. I have a few errands to chase up myself, as well. We'll get more done if we go our separate ways for a few hours."

Sherlock had sent him on a fool's errand: find Sterndale, and tell him not to leave town until he'd spoken to them, so he could have some closure on the crimes that had taken his friends away. John had looked everywhere, asked all his neighbours and the business owners in the community. He'd even checked in on the surgery, where William was being held for observation. He had climbed, and climbed, and walked, and walked.

No one had seen Sterndale all that day. He wasn't answering his phone, and he hadn't been near his house. John had the sneaking suspicion that Sterndale had left to take up his journey again, despite the apparent concern and anger he'd demonstrated in their doorway the night before.

John slowed in his homeward tracks, as thinking back to that moment in the kitchen, before Sterndale's sudden interruption, felt like a shove to his guts. He swore he could still feel Sherlock's hand clasping his own, feel his breath ghost across his cheek, feel his eyes burn him. What might have happened, had Sterndale never come? Would he have had the courage to search those eyes? Would he have stepped away, or closed the gap? What had been the question Sherlock was about to ask? Or…had there been nothing going on at all? Had John misinterpreted what had happened?

No. Because then Sherlock wouldn't have brought it up the way he did the next morning. Sherlock had clearly…

John had never been one to fantasise, nor thought himself capable of this sort of fantasy. Fantasy builds delusion, he reasoned, creates false hope, leads to disappointment. So he wouldn't. He wouldn't imagine what might have happened next. No sir. Not Sherlock's wet hand sliding up his wrist to pull him nearer, nor his own name spoken as sonorous thunder rolling through distant hills. Not the tang of wine that lingered in the diminishing space between them and the warm numbness it bathed them in. And he certainly wouldn't muse over the idea that he might have shown his own strength, pressed the young man back against the edge of the sink, a hand on each of those slender hips he'd admired in the golden light shining in through the kitchen door, nor the pleasure, the untasted, unimagined pleasure of—

Poldhu cottage was dark. Sherlock should have returned hours ago. His fatigue forgotten, John broke into a run.

* * *

Thank you for your continuing reviews. They really spur me on. You guys keep me excited about sharing this story with you. You are lovely people :)


	11. Psalms

John jogged the last few steps, but his concern became curiosity when he found the door unlocked, and Holmes' coat hanging in the hall.

"Sherlock?" he said quietly, pushing through into the gloomy interior. "I couldn't find— Sher—? Are you in here? It's dark—"

"I'm here, John."

"Why are you sitting in the dark?"

"Is it dark?"

"Yes, Sherlock. It must be eight o'clock, if not later."

"I suppose it is."

"How have you not noticed?"

"I've been deep in thought, John. Light is immaterial."

"Evidently. Have you eaten?"

"No. Did you find him?"

"No. I've been to his house and around the village, but no one's seen Sterndale all day. If you ask me, he's on a flight."

"Not yet."

John's level of annoyance rose. "Care to explain your thoughts, Sherlock?"

The detective lit a lamp – not the electric lamp that had lighted John's fantasies on his walk up the hill, but a plain, old-fashioned hurricane lamp. Sherlock turned up the dial, and as the wick rose, the flame grew bigger, brighter. Sherlock's angular face was bathed in a warm glow.

"Shed a little light, you mean?"

"Very clever. Let's not forget that we're investigating a double homicide, shall we?"

"Can you accuse me of forgetting? It's been playing on my mind these last four days, and finally," he said with a flourish, _"this_ lamp, John, is the key to the mystery. I took—"

"_That_ lamp?"

"Yes, John. I took it from the cupboard over the sink, but it's the same as Mortimer's lamp in every way, as I thought it might be. There is just the one shop in the village, after all. Also, I made sure by giving the original another look."

"You went back to Mortimer's room? But, Sherlock, the police were—

"The police," Sherlock interrupted, frustration welling, "had finished in Mortimer's room and they saw nothing of importance about the lamp at all. They really are—"

"Well, perhaps they were distracted by the cor—"

"No, Sterndale was right. Useless! They see everything, observe nothing. Maybe I should've left them a note, or hired a billboard along the road."

Watson removed his jacket and sat across from Holmes at the table, the curious lamp between them.

"Well, you haven't explained to me why this thing's important."

"Do I need to explain?"

"Don't you remember?" John challenged, his tone edging on bitter. "I disappoint you. I miss things, get things wrong."

"John, I…" Sherlock faltered.

John bit his tongue, knowing that he was playing cards against which Sherlock had no defence, and the unfairness of the trick struck him as soon as the words were out of his mouth.

"I-I meant what I said w-when…" the detective stammered.

"No, Sherlock—"

"You…_are_…invaluable to me. I didn't mean—"

_Dammit_. "I'm sorry. Forget it; Okay? I'm sorry. It's been a tough day. Please, Sherlock, tell me why the lamp is important. You've genuinely got me on this one."

"It's, well, it's the key to the mystery."

"To both murders?"

"In a sense. You'll have realised by now, John, that both murder scenes have several things in common. Firstly and – you'll agree - most importantly, there's the effect of the atmosphere of the two rooms where the crimes took place on those who first entered them. When the GP, for example, went into the parlour where Mortimer's family was struck down, he himself suffered a fall."

"That's right."

"And Mrs Porter, the neighbour, told us that she also fainted upon entering the room."

"That's true. We were all right, though? Weren't we?"

"We arrived nearly an hour later – much too late to be affected. In the second killing, however – that of Mortimer himself – you can't have forgotten the horrible stench in the house when we arrived, even though William had thrown the windows open."

"God, yes. I'd swear that I still smell it now."

"And you saw how affected William was, when we first arrived."

"Is he still at the surgery?"

"They moved him to hospital. I spoke with the GP again this afternoon."

John nodded. "He hit his head pretty badly."

"Not just that, John. William kept telling the doctor that his flesh was trying to crawl away from his bones, and would he mind stitching it back in place for him."

"Christ."

"You must admit that these facts are suggestive."

"Some kind of…nerve toxin? Drug?"

"Exactly. The air itself, in both cases, was a poisonous fume." Sherlock gestured toward the lamp between them. "But from what source?"

"A lamp?" Then understanding struck. "Fire! In both rooms there was a source of fire."

"Exactly. In the first case, a gas-fuelled hearth, and in the latest?"

"A lamp."

"A lamp, of a kind no one needs or uses these days, one that had performed no more than a decorative function for years, but was prominently displayed on the table in front of the dead man."

"And so, totally out of place. How could the police not have noticed?"

"Lack of imagination, common sense? It hardly matters. _We_ can be satisfied with the knowledge that the lamp, like the fire at Tregannick Wartha, was lit for some other purpose: some sinister use that led to the madness or death of four people."

"Sherlock, that's brilliant."

"Hardly." Holmes rose and went to the hall where his coat was hanging.

John watched Sherlock's retreating back, his heart pounding. How could he have missed what was right in front of him…all that time?

"It seems terribly obvious now," John whispered to himself, as he appreciated the blue-green brightness of the base of the flame inside the chimney.

"It's safe to assume, then," Sherlock called over his shoulder as he rummaged in his coat pockets, "that they were used to burn a substance that had a terrible effect on anyone who breathed in the resulting fumes."

John suddenly had an idea. "There's one problem."

"Oh?" Sherlock encouraged, returning to the table.

"At Tregannick, well, why wouldn't the fumes have just got drawn straight up the chimney with the smoke from the fire?"

"That's good John." Watson gave him a withering look. "No, I mean it. Some may have, yes, but not all, especially on a windy night. Gas fires are almost smoke-free; they don't need to have flues that draw particularly well because the fuel is so well-regulated and pure. Carbon monoxide is a light substance; it rises easily. If anything _else _were to be burned in that fireplace, though…"

"The flue would've been next to useless."

"Exactly. The poison would take longer to accumulate in the parlour, even with the door and windows shut, but it _would_ build up, to a lethal degree, eventually."

"It was Brenda, after all, who was sitting nearest the fire—"

"-and who would have had the largest dose." Sherlock finished. "And so, she died, though her brothers suffered only the first effect of the fumes: madness."

"It's evil. It's literally evil."

"The killer chose that particular night to make his move because the weather suited his purpose. He must have known exactly how the murder was to be done."

"And so in the second murder—"

"Yes, Mortimer, on the other hand, had a full dose of the poison. Shut up inside his room, he had no chance of escaping with his life."

"But what poison, Sherlock, works in so violent a way? Christ…I've never heard of such a thing."

"That's hardly your fault, John. The world is a big place; new discoveries are still being made every single day." Sherlock revealed what he had taken from the pocket of his coat: he unfolded the holiday brochure he'd used at the scene of the crime that morning, delicately, keeping it as flat as he could on the table, though John noticed that his fingers shook. "Do you remember what I took from the room?"

"You-you scraped soot from the rim of the lamp. I watched you."

"Good. I was already convinced by the time we left Tregannick Wartha that the victims had been affected by inhaling poisonous fumes from a burning substance, and so, this afternoon, the lamp drew my interest right away. I wasn't disappointed. There was a heavy residue, not soot but a black powder, all around the inside rim of the glass chimney. I took half of it for later study."

"Why only half?"

"I was being genuine when I said that I didn't want to interfere with the police. I left them enough evidence to work with."

"I see."

"Of course, they missed all of the clues I left them, but I did try. Now, John, we'll discover the effects of the powder for ourselves."

John sat bolt upright. "I beg your pardon?"

"Theory is all very well, and should be more than enough to settle our case. But the law is more demanding. It needs proof."

"Proof, but…"

Holmes stood again, delicately, so as to not disturb the fragile mound of fine powder on the table. He began undoing the buttons of his jacket.

"We have the necessary means and materials; an experiment will give us all the proof we could want."

"An experiment? _This_- this is the experiment you were talking about? But, Sherlock, you don't—"

"We'll take precautions, of course."

"But it's toxic."

"A relative term."

"_Nerve_ toxin, Sherlock! It's _killed_ two people."

"That's why you're going to open the window, please, and sit very near it like a sensible man. With any luck-"

"_Luck_?"

"-you'll remain relatively unaffected, and can observe me. Your medical opinion is of real importance to our case, John. I did say I'd be needing you."

"It's my _medical – bloody - opinion_ that this is a terrible idea, Sherlock!"

"Of course, I also rely on your unwavering support as a friend and colleague."

"It's my friendly and _collegial_ opinion that this is a terrible idea, and more besides!"

"Absolutely correct." Sherlock paused with his jacket half off, as if a sudden thought occurred to him. "If you needed to, John, do you think you'd be able to restrain me?"

"This is nothing to joke about."

"I'm not joking."

Watson rose to his feet. "I don't like it."

Sherlock strode to the front window and opened it himself, every line and motion of him infused with determination.

"Neither do I. Satisfaction must be had, though. I'm placing myself entirely in your hands."

"Really, Sherlock. Do you understand what you're asking me to be responsible for here?"

"Do I _understand_?"

John shook his head, a grimace stretching his lined, tired face. "It's going too far, Sherlock. It's going _too _far."

Holmes grasped Watson by the upper arm. "But, you will help me, won't you? Have I once gone wrong? Once, in all the time we've known each other?"

"I think it hardly matters!" John avoided, pulling away. "There's a first time for everything, and this just might be it."

"All the same, under your watch, how could harm come to me?"

"That's _very _flattering. Thanks for your trust, but I _hate_ the idea. You've asked too much this time, Sherlock, I want nothing—"

"I've got no one else to help me."

"And if I walk away? Hmm? Walk out of that door," John challenged, pointing, "and refuse to be part of this, this insanity?"

"John, it troubles me to say so, but I would proceed in any case. Only…" he paused, capturing John's eyes with his own and finding, the doctor felt, new depths in searching out his soul. "I'd be without the security of having you by my side."

"Now-now you look here," John struggled. "That's bloody well unfair."

"I'm only being matter of fact."

"It's blackmail, emotional blackm—!

"Free will, John."

"But refusing me my own, is that it?"

"I would never do that."

"How are you _not_ refusing me a choice, Sherlock?" Watson was on the verge of turning manic, the pressure of the situation becoming unbearable.

"Your final decision remains entirely up to you."

"I see. How wonderfully uncomplicated…how very _neat_ for you."

"It is what it is."

"Yes. So my choice, then, is-is to go, and take absent responsibility for what amounts to attempted suicide, or stay - stay as though I support this-this insane behaviour of yours, is that it?"

"In essence, yes."

"How generous of you, you complete and utter bastard."

"Is the door still unlocked?"

John wanted to cry, as he hadn't done for the whole of his adult life. The unfairness, the danger, the weight of the situation overwhelmed him. He wanted to be sick. He dared not let himself twin his present concerns with everything else raging through his skull…everything he wasn't going to think about right now because this was the wrong time – _That this is the man…the _man…_that I love_. The thought came welling up through every barrier, every attempt at denial that he was capable of building, and suddenly, all was clear: perfectly, beautifully clear.

"John?"

"Yes."

"Pardon?"

_Where else should I be, if not here?_

"Yes, the door's still unlocked."

"Thank you," he whispered, after a pause.

"You depended on my relenting." John replied darkly. "You knew I would."

"Of course. Like I said…I read you. Perhaps unlatch the door? Let it stand open a crack."

"If you think it'll help."

"I did say we'd take precautions. Now, I have the powder here. Are you ready?"

"No." Holmes gave John another pleading look. "Alright, as much as I can be, but I _will_ put a stop to this the moment I feel you're endangering yourself."

"No, John, we're well past that moment already. Now! Sit by the window. Watch, _observe_, fix what you see in your mind. We won't have a second chance."

"How comforting of you to say so."

Holmes took a square of wire mesh from his pocket and, with trembling fingers, placed it over the top of the glass chimney. Carefully, he shook the powder from its makeshift envelope onto the mesh, and increased the flame by a full turn of the dial. John retreated to the chair by the open window, felt the cold sea air snake in up the lane. He bit the flesh at the base of his thumb, hard.

He felt as though someone had started the clock ticking on a time bomb.


	12. Kings

"Let's talk while we wait, John. You'll be able to track changes more easily, then."

"I'm…not sure what one tends to discuss under these circumstances."

"Perhaps," he hesitated, "perhaps this would be a good time to—"

"Are you mad?"

Sherlock paused again. He was running shaking fingertips over the edge of his bottom lip, staring into the lamplight.

"Not yet."

"Funny."

"What do people ever discuss?"

"The weather. Politics. Family."

"Dull."

"A bit of dullness is nice sometimes."

"Is it?"

"Sometimes." John had his toes curled up inside his boots and his left hand spasmed – telltale signs of the strain. Sherlock, he saw, noticed. His eyes were fixed on Sherlock, and he hated to blink, except that his eyes were burning. "It's all I want, now and then, you know? A few quiet days; months, even. A quiet, simple life, perhaps, some day. Convention does have its charms, Sherlock."

Holmes gave a long sigh, and Watson worried about him taking such deep breaths, so close to the burning lamp.

"I suppose it must, for some."

"How are you feeling?" John said, sitting forward in his seat and testing the air with shallow breaths.

"Not sure. It's a bit thick in here. Do you smell it?

"Uh-huh."

"Then, please, don't lean forward. Keep your head out of the smoke as much as you can. I don't like to think…" Holmes closed his eyes. "I want you safe."

"I can't see any smoke."

Sherlock's eyes snapped open. John saw that they were red. "But it's pouring off the top of the lamp. Are you certain you can't see it?"

"I'm sure."

"Must be the low light."

"Maybe you want to come nearer the window, too?"

"No, I'm fine." Sherlock ran his fingers through his curls and gave his head a subtle shake. "This case, though, John. This case! To think that you nearly threw that letter away!"

"It's been…I can hardly describe what it's been like. A lot to _process_."

"The smiling and beautiful countryside, hiding a heart of wickedness. Isn't that what I said? I should—" Holmes broke off into a sharp, shallow cough.

"What do you feel?"

His voice was rough. "Thirsty. My throat's burning a bit."

"Do you want a glass of water?"

"No, you'd have to come over here. Please, stay where you are. Though it would be good to have you closer, out of selfishness. I wish I could see you better, John. It would be a comfort. This, whatever this is, has me feeling suddenly very alone."

"Not much of a change then." Watson quipped, feeling afraid. Sherlock made no reply.

To John, the air was still perfectly clear, though it bore a stench that had his own head beginning to swim. He was deeply thankful for the on-shore breeze pushing in through the window. To think that, mere days ago, Sherlock had occupied that chair for long, lazy hours, while John had peacefully slept. Suddenly, Holmes was on his feet.

"Problem?"

"No," Sherlock replied, running his hands over his upper arms.

"Are you sure you want to carry on?"

"We must!" Sherlock spat, pounding the table and causing John and the lamp to jump, the powder to sift through its mesh. "Or how are we to win? But, finally, things are starting to be clear."

"Really? Good, that's—"

"We are indeed fighting an evil – didn't I say, John? – It's outside in the dark. I see him now. William was right."

John shifted in his chair. "Now, hang on. Just…what are you saying, Sherlock?"

"_Don't_ turn to look."

"I'm not. There's nothing to see."

"Yes, there is."

"Sherlock, we've been here before. It's a drug, remember? You're starting to see things, just like you did in Devon, on the Baskerville case. It felt real then, too."

"I think I know the difference."

"Just…a friendly reminder."

"To hell with it, John! It isn't a drug. The lamp has nothing to do with the murders. John, I was wrong. Happy? There is no drug. The killer is there. He's real, and he's outside…this…house!"

"Stop it, now. Sherlock, you're starting to scare me."

"You should be scared! There's a killer standing at the door."

John rose and covered his nose and mouth with his sleeve. He moved towards the hall, but Sherlock was on him in a second, hauling him back into the room.

"Don't, Sherlock. You need out of here!"

"It's not finished."

"No, we know how this ends; we won't let it finish. Look, there's nothing at the door."

"There is!"

Sherlock, with adrenaline-fuelled strength, wrenched John around to face him. He held John's head in his hands, and John struggled to free himself.

"Stop it."

"If you turn, if you look, you'll be the one to die. I can't, John. I can't let you go."

"We have to get out, Sherlock!" John yelled, enunciating each word.

"It'll kill you!"

"No, _you'll_ kill us."

"This is the only safe place left!"

"Come on, please, Sherlock! For me!"

"I won't…"

In that moment, Sherlock showed a new level of dread, and as it swept through him, his grip faltered, and John turned to the door. There was nothing there.

"NO!"

Suddenly, John felt Sherlock's arm around his throat as he pulled them both to the floor.

"You can't have him!" he shouted in the direction of the hall. Then to John, "Didn't I say? Why did you have to look?"

"Please. God."

"No. John! Stay…stay."

"We have to get out!"

"Don't leave me. Don't leave me alone. John, please, it would kill me. I need you. You're all that matters to me."

"This is senseless!"

"Haven't I _always_ said?"

"Please."

"Haven't I… haven't I… John. Oh!" His voice was taken away by a body-wracking cough.

Sherlock slumped, awake still but with his strength suddenly sapped away as though it bled from him, and John heard his shoulders hit the floor with a heavy thud. He looked Sherlock in the face, and knew he had only seconds. John felt that he wasn't far behind, and used the little strength remaining in him to pull them both towards the open door. John saw the smoke now: it formed a tunnel, a horrific tunnel at the end of which was clear air, and freedom. The lower he kept them, the nearer the door they crawled, the lesser the fumes became.

John's heart was thrashing in his chest, his lungs screamed for relief, his skin felt on fire. Only the one, consuming goal of getting Holmes to safety left him in an ecstasy…_ Gas…GAS! Quick boys - an ecstasy of fumbling… _John's mind was going to shreds on him. _Under a sea-green light._ _Sea green eyes. _

His limbs were crumbling to clay on the slates like black ice, but at long last they were out. John saw that Sherlock struggled to breathe, and he tore the neck of his shirt open as his last possible act. Spread bodily in the lane, they lay in a tangle of shaking, brittle limbs. Their chests heaved against the frigid dark, and they pulled the sweet air through their open, gasping mouths.

How long they lay there, John was never able to guess. He was aware of being unconscious for a time, though whether seconds or minutes…

He and Sherlock seemed to rise from the darkness of the poison together. John was the first on his knees, and he helped the taller man pull himself up, bracing him with a hand on each shoulder. It was Holmes who spoke first, his forehead against John's chest.

"That was possibly the stupidest thing I've ever done."

"Possibly?"

"I never should have put you in danger. I'm really, very sorry."

"Are you okay?"

"I'm sorry. I'm so very sorry. I never should have put you in harm's way."

"Where else would I be, if not here with you, Sherlock?"

Sherlock covered John's hands with his own, cold, for the first time John had known, and spent a few seconds in the simple act of breathing, before losing himself to an uncontrollable giggle, which John felt all the way through him.

"What?"

"Stupid idea, John, trying to drive us mad."

"Oh?"

"Oh, yes." Holmes said, raising his head at last and looking at him. "We're quite mad already."

Watson stood, drawing his hands over his face to wipe away the streaming tears. He gave a short, thick laugh.

"S-Speak for yourself."

"I never imagined the effects would be so strong."

"But, what happened to the others… to William, and-and…" John protested, helping Sherlock to lift himself to his feet.

"I genuinely thought I'd be able to cope."

"Idiot."

"Yes. We must give the room time to clear. Walk?"

"If you're up to it."

Sherlock began to descend the lane, walking as an old man might, stumbling once against a wall, and John stayed close by him.

"I think we can safely say that we've proven how this family met its end?"

"But who, who would do such an evil thing?"

They could hear the sea. Every window they passed was a blank socket in an empty skull. They were alone, and free.

"All the evidence points to Mortimer Tregennis as the killer in the first tragedy, even though he was the victim in the second one."

"Mortimer, really?"

"He told us, if you remember, that there had been some family problem, long since done with. I made something of that in my thoughts. How bitter had that division been? How cleanly could the wound have healed for a man exiled, by design or by choice, from his family home? Though we can't know for certain, I find it difficult to see Mortimer Tregennis as a forgiving man."

"No, I agree with you there, Sherlock. He had a cold sort of look, didn't he?"

"Yes, cold. Well put."

The lane evened out and spread into the harbour landing. In the dim clusters of lights that dotted the village and hills, John saw that the tide was out. The stony flats and the angled, grounded fishing boats were glazed with an oily slickness, illumined by the sweeping blue harbour light, regular as a slow heartbeat. Sherlock struck out across the stones and made for the whelk-littered, concrete walkway that joined the shore to the root of the far seawall against the rocks.

"Finally, if it wasn't him who threw the poisonous powder into the fire, then who? Only he could have approached that fire and not raised the suspicion of his siblings, and they never left their seats."

"So, that means…"

"Yes?"

"That means his own death was suicide."

"Not an impossible idea, John, on the face of it: his soul, heavy with guilt, couldn't bear the burden any longer, and all that rubbish."

"You don't think so?"

"No."

They walked in silence for a time, and John focussed on his footing. They took the uneven concrete slabs towards the sea wall: a distance that seemed half so long in the daylight but now stretched grandly before them.

When they reached the end, Holmes mounted the barnacled iron rungs of the ladder set into the concrete face of the sea wall and pulled himself onto the top, helping Watson when he followed suit.

"There are too many reasons against it and a whole corner of the puzzle which we've not set out."

"What, Sherlock?"

"John, if you write up this case for the blog, your readers will adore the twist about to unfold. And, if I'm not mistaken…" Holmes pointed one long finger to the end of the wall, where the rusting harbour beacon was bolted. In the popping-dark intervals between blue flashes, John saw a shadowy figure standing at the abrupt edge of the wall. Sherlock, projecting his full strength, strode out towards the end and John followed behind. The figure didn't move until they were only feet away.

"Good evening, Doctor Sterndale."

The figure gave no start of surprise. "Bit late to be out for a walk, Holmes."

"Mm. I'm afraid that we've been conducting an experiment in our sitting room that's left it unfit for purpose at the moment. As John can tell you, it's a regular habit of mine."

"You have some nerve, Holmes."

"Have I?"

"It's you that's chased me out here tonight. The whole village…"

"I wanted your help, Leon."

"I hate the idea of my private affairs being discussed… gossiped about. Can't a man have the privacy even to grieve? How dare you? You interfering…"

"I understand. The situation's a delicate one for you."

"Piss off."

"It would be a shame to have to bring it to the police."

"Is that a threat, Holmes?"

"A favour, for now."

"And why, dare I ask, do you suggest that I'd want favours from you?"

"Because, last night, you killed Mortimer Tregennis."

"What?" John interjected. Leon Sterndale, who had been standing on the edge of the concrete precipice, turned and advanced on Holmes.

"How dare you, sir! How dare you make such outrageous accusations against me!"

"Please, Leon."

"I have lived a long and difficult life, Holmes, in places where the only safety to be had was in keeping myself to myself because even the laws were against me."

"I know."

"It makes a man desperate, even dangerous."

"Leon…"

"But I was a _good_ man, Holmes. I _am_—"

"Leon…"

"I don't want to hurt you!"

"And I have no wish to hurt you. Surely you can see that, Dr Sterndale?" Sherlock threw his arms wide. "Where are the police?"

Sterndale turned from Holmes and resumed his former place, his toes peeking over the crumbling edge of the wall. He stared, slump-shouldered, between his feet at the churning, black waters below, where John could just see, with each sweep of the beacon, sharp rocks gnashing in the foam.

"Leon, please!" Sherlock urged, afraid to move.

"Why did you come here tonight, Holmes?"

"To give you the chance to defend yourself."

"Defend myself?"

"I've just accused you of murder, Leon."

The man gave out a low, humourless laugh. "Thrusting in the dark, Holmes. But isn't that just your style?" he insinuated, twisting and turning a sharp eye on John. "You have no proof."

"I base my accusation on hard facts, Leon. Would you like to hear them?"

"Holmes, I have nothing to lose, now."

"You revealed your part in this the night you showed up on my doorstep."

"I never did!"

"You did so by coming back at all, Leon."

"I told you! I came back because—"

"Yes, I've heard your reasons," Sherlock interrupted. "A bit underwhelming, Doctor. Unconvincing, to say the least. Never mind them. You came to my door to find out what I was up to. I said nothing, and you assumed that you had to take things into your own hands, to soothe your own heartbreak."

John was feeling overwhelmed himself. He felt lost, no longer in step with his partner.

"How dare you," Sterndale growled.

"You left my door and went home, avoiding the main road so that you wouldn't be seen. Then you went straight to the vicarage, because you knew that time would be pressing. You pocketed a handful of gravel from the drover's track you took across the fields. It's an odd colour – reddish — most distinguishable against the chalkiness of the coastal soil. And you were wearing the same worn out plimsolls that's you're wearing right now. You passed through the vicar's back garden and you waited, unseen, for Mortimer to return. When he did, you stepped forward, stopping when you reached the spot below Mortimer's bedroom window. Then you threw the gravel at the window to catch his attention. The grit was all over the sill of that window this morning."

"You are the devil himself!"

"Thank you. It took only one handful to catch Mortimer's attention. He'd been on edge all day, after all. As well he might, having just destroyed his own family."

Leon was on the edge of losing control. "The coward!"

"You asked him to come down. He met you at the door, and he knew why you were there. But you were an old family friend; how could he refuse you without raising William's suspicions? He took you inside. You spoke together, during which time you checked to make sure the windows of the room were shut. Then you left, and stood watching through the window while Mortimer died. It takes a strong motive to move a man of your past to such violence."

Leon reached into his coat pocket and for a moment, John was stricken by fear. Though John was expecting a gun, Leon pulled out a photograph.

"There is my motive. You won't find a stronger."

He handed the photo to Sherlock, who shared it with John. The photo was black and white, and in the impossible light under the beacon, it took several flashes for John to put the image together in his mind. He saw two young men: they were shirtless and bronze-skinned, and standing among trees at a water edge. One was clearly Leon Sterndale as a polished youth. He had is arms thrown about the shoulders of the other, who had a familiar face.

"Owen Tregennis," Holmes voiced.

"Mortimer's brother?" John echoed.

"For days, I've only heard Brenda's name. _What a terrible loss. She was so young._ So much sympathy for the dead. There are more ways besides killing to take a life, Holmes. My Owen is gone to me. Gone forever: the one thing—the one thing that truly mattered to me. Our secret, for so many, many years."

"Tell me, Leon. It's safe now."

"It must be hard for a city boy like you to understand. You're very young, Holmes. You don't remember what it was like… before. Especially in the country, and in some other countries, where revealing yourself meant death. It's hard, very hard to change your attitude after enough years have passed. You can't really believe that the world is capable of changing around you."

"But it has."

"Oh, it has. Lucky for you," he said with bitterness, and in a blue sweep, John saw again that Sterndale looked at him. John looked at his feet. "But, incredibly – I can't tell you how incredibly – the laws changed. I'm an old fashioned man, at heart. Owen and I were to be married in the summer. William knew. He was to officiate, at a small, a private family wedding. The vicar knew our secret for a long time. Years. He loved Owen like a brother, you see. That's why he phoned me… that's why I came back."

Sterndale hadn't moved from the edge of the precipice. He swayed with the memory of his losses and the horror of facing a future alone.

"Go on, Leon."

Sterndale took something that crinkled from his pocket and tossed it in Holmes' direction. Holmes picked up the packet, and passed it to Watson, who read the label.

"Radix pedis diaboli. Devil's Foot Root."

"Have you ever heard of such a thing, Doctor?"

"No."

"Not surprising. It's a rare thing. When fresh and whole, it looks like the foot of a goat, and its effects… the name is an appropriate one, for many reasons."

"You discovered it on one of your study trips to Africa."

"It's used as an ordeal poison by the medicine men of some tribes in West Africa. They keep it a tightly guarded secret. I don't want to admit what I had to trade with them to obtain this one specimen."

"A pity you did."

"That's the truest thing you've said."

"Go on, Dr Sterndale."

"I've told you my connection to the Tregennis family. For Owen's sake, I was friendly with his siblings, and his father when he was alive. There was a time, when I was young and naïve, when I was always thinking, you see, of that impossible, far-off day when we might be one family. They had their own troubles, which came and went. I never cared for Mortimer, much as I tried. He was a scheming man, a talker. I've never much trusted talkers," he said with disgust."But I was friendly to him."

"What happened?"

"One day, two weeks ago, he came to my cottage and I showed him some of the odd things I've collected in my travels. I told him," he paused, struggling, "I told him of this powder, and what it could do… bring a man's worst fears to bear down on him, and how madness or death would follow if the exposure lasted too long. I boasted of its rarity, and of how unknown it was to Western science. He asked me questions, about-about how long was needed for the effects to take hold. I answered him! How could I have known that he—?" Sterndale wavered, one foot slipping over the edge. He came down hard on his rump, while the sea surged on at the base of the long drop.

"Try to keep hold of yourself, doctor."

"You see, William's phone call was very useful to me. Not only did it tell me how my Owen went mad, but also who had done it, and who, of course, had been responsible for the break-in at my house just the week before, and what had been taken. Who else but Mortimer could it have been?"

"And you were the only man able to discover his crime," John posed. Holmes responded with pride.

"Excellent, John."

"He had to have thought I would be in the air before news could reach me. I so very nearly was! And for what reason was my Owen so cruelly ruined? For money? For spite?"

"It would seem so."

"For nothing, then! The man was a criminal of the worst kind, but what jury would be sold on so wild a story, so lacking in evidence? I have no trust…I thought justice would be impossible if left in the hands of the law. So what was to be his punishment? I have been a good man, Mr Holmes, but my soul demanded revenge. The rest you know."

"You gave Mortimer the same horror that Owen felt, before ending his life."

"I had a gun on him, to keep him quiet and in his chair. My God! How he died. But he suffered nothing that my Owen had not, while it still mattered. Perhaps, if you ever love as I've done, you'll know what a man can be driven to, what madness possesses him when his love is threatened, and taken away. No man living can hurt me more than I've been hurt already. Death itself has no fear for me."

"And that was your plan, tonight? To throw yourself on the rocks?"

"It would be…a relief, Holmes."

"A man can bury himself in life as easily as in death."

"What do you mean?"

"Go to Kenya, Dr Sterndale. Lose yourself, but do it in life. I'm not prepared to stop you. If you move towards that edge again, though, I will stop you. I will bring you to justice."

Leon stood, slowly, as though decades had piled on him in the ensuing minutes, and after an excruciating wait, he took a step backwards, away from the edge of the wall.

"You are a good man, Holmes, the best of men."

"Goodbye, Dr Sterndale. I hope we never meet again."

Leon Sterndale never spoke another word. He walked past them, a man of lead, and disappeared down the long walk, his retreating back shrinking in the sweeping blue light, until at last he was gone from their sight. In that same moment, Sherlock's legs gave out from under him, and he sank to his knees and leaned his back against the rusting iron pole of the beacon. John followed him down, his heart on fire. He could see nothing but white sparks against the black silhouette of Holmes against the midnight blue sky. He reached out blindly, clasped Sherlock's neck between his shaking hands, and pulled him into a desperate kiss. Sherlock pulled away with a sharp intake of breath.

"John? Is…is _this_ the right time to talk about it?"

"No, Sherlock. Now isn't the time to talk."

John had imagined, on countless occasions, what this moment would be like and, living it, he realised how papery and insubstantial those imaginings had been. He hadn't the taste, the sound, the weight of what he was experiencing now. He hadn't the thrill of feeling the kiss returned, the urgency of Holmes' arms pulling him nearer. He buried his fingers in the curly hair at the base of his neck, felt grit from the road where he'd fallen after their senseless experiment that evening. Sherlock broke away for air and pressed his hot cheekbone to John's temple. John let his hands slide down to grip Holmes' collar.

"It's cold out here, John."

"Is it?"

"Dangerous.

"Do you think we can go back to the cottage?"

"It should have cleared well enough by now."

Sherlock rose to his feet and gathered John to him, pulled him into another gentle kiss.

"Sherlock, let's have more holidays," John suggested as he turned them to begin the walk back.

"Not Cornwall."

"_Not_ Cornwall," John agreed, smiling for the first time in what felt like days.

They began the long walk down to the harbour flats, side by side, but as far apart as safety and the width of the wall allowed.

"Not that I needed _this_ holiday."

"No."

"Since I _wasn't_ on the edge of a mental breakdown."

"_No_, of course not."

"I'm glad you're finally starting to see the obvious, John."

"It's been rather a week, hasn't it?"

"Yes."

"Lots to process."

Sherlock paused on the top rung of the ladder. "It has indeed." John crouched in front of him, clasping his face again, again demanding a kiss, again receiving it from cold, gentle lips. When he pulled back, Sherlock continued. "I'm rather looking forward to going back to Baker Street, now. That is, if Mrs Hudson hasn't changed the locks in our absence."

Sherlock started down the steps and John followed.

"Oh, yes. Yes, that's a point. The ceiling…"

"I _think_ I've done worse things. I'll call tomorrow morning, and find out whether or not we've been evicted."

THE END

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**Again, thank you to everyone who has been following and commenting on this story. Please take a moment to leave a comment. I'm mainly on here to experiment and find out what's working and what's not in my writing. You help me achieve that and you have my thanks.**

If there's a story you'd like to see me write, I'm very open to suggestions, being at a loose end, now, as far as FF is concerned!

Thanks for coming along for a ride with me. Enjoy your day :)


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